


slow dreams and slow-healing wounds

by SecretFandomStories



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Biting, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Florid Metaphors, Enemies to Lovers, Gratuitous French, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, New Orleans, Possessive Hannibal Lecter, Prequel, Scars, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:15:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 39,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27748114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretFandomStories/pseuds/SecretFandomStories
Summary: Should there be lovethe soul may ridethe river of bloodthrough rapidsover fallspast breaking rocksinto a harboursafe from time,or so the story goes.--Guy Gavriel KayA teenage Hannibal visits America with his aunt and uncle and finds romance in the unlikeliest of places.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 12
Kudos: 73
Collections: fanfiction i enjoy immensely





	slow dreams and slow-healing wounds

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my co-writer, who preferred to remain anonymous. Title from a poem by Sheryl St. Germain.

Will is good with the boats, good with lines, but his hands won't be missed at the docks if there are errands to run. It's how he ends up being the one to drop fish off at the Boudreaux household with their visiting friends every Sunday morning, greeting the woman at the back door and stepping inside to wait while she finds money.

Today, it's the young man with sharp boned features that answers the door; Will's gaze flicks up to meet his only briefly, before looking pointedly away. In the end, it's something like good will - and something more like curiosity for what this mirror of a boy will say, when Will is standing awkwardly in the kitchen unloading fresh fish into the sink and waiting for his money, and opens his mouth to say, "You should stop wandering around in the mornings. You stick out."

Hannibal is nineteen and very certain that no one in New Orleans is as clever or as interesting as anyone in Paris. He would far rather have stayed there in the cool stone house, alone with his books and drawings. The Boudreaux household bustles. In the clammy summer heat the upper floors become too stifling to bear, forcing Hannibal downstairs with bad grace. The kitchen here is not a sanctuary. Strangers come and go from dawn until noon. This boy is not a stranger, though. His scent of muddy water and diesel is familiar and disgusting. Hannibal looks down his nose at him. "You should mind your manners." French first, and then English, because he's forgotten, and all of it with a sneer.

Will can't say that he's surprised by the response - French, he recognizes it, for the most part. Different than the Cajun French he's grown up around. The accent is vastly different than his own, a stark contrast that distracts Will for a moment before he rolls his shoulders and returns to emptying the ice box one fish at a time. "Act like a couyon, you'll be treated like one." He returns, eyes down - not quite turned away from this boy, because Will doesn't like putting his back to people. It's too sharp to say, shoulders tense at this soft rich boy's sharp tongue - too sharp particularly to someone buying straight from the boat with no middle man to split the earnings with. He'll face a whooping if he's forced to go back to the docks and admit he's lost their meal ticket. Still. His mouth gets the better of him. "Word of advice."

This is too much to be borne. Hannibal gathers arrogance around him like a cloak, covering his light linen suit. He steps forward, well into Will's personal space, leaving himself open to a fist or a knee but confident that he is quick enough to block either if this disgusting little boy dares. The smell of him fills Hannibal's nose, telling the stories of the errands he's already run that morning. "I have some advice for you, little fish," he says, voice deceptively soft and quiet. "Don't speak unless you're spoken to."

The faint rustle of clothes, the sound of shoes on too-clean tile, still Will's hands and have tension draw his spine straight and shoulders tight. He doesn't move away, but his head twitches toward the man that steps toward him. Abruptly, intimately, aware of how close they are. What damage could be done, like this. Will's hands tighten where they're curled around the counters edge. Breathe deep - but slow, quiet. Good money shouldn't be wasted. There were too many other fishermen in the city to feel special, or safe. The safe bet is to nod. To keep his head down. But Will is hearing 'little fish' echo in his head, and when his eyes flicker up to, briefly, meet the others, what he ends up saying is, "Gâté pourri. You're welcome."

Hannibal doesn't raise his hand to this impudent Cajun bantam, but it is a near thing. If he had ever spoken so impertinently to any of his guardians at the orphanage, a clip across the ear would have been the least of his worries. "Tu parles français comme une vache espagnole," Hannibal hisses. Will's insult aside, butchery of this language he has come to love rankles almost worse.

Will inhales sharply now, turning to properly face this man. Too quick temper flaring, chin up and eyes narrowed like a dare - his eyes are like the bayou at night, dark and reflecting what peers in without revealing what's underneath, but Will doesn't flinch. Only hates that he's so caught up in it. "Grosse bête," he shoots back. The clash of their accents is stark and heated in the suddenly very-small kitchen. This was sure to end poorly - distantly, he dreaded that talk with his father. "Mind your own manners before you talk 'bout mine."

There it is. The boy's ire is truly up. Hannibal smiles a thin, sharp smile. Such a little cock to come at him like this, pretty eyes bright and angry. He's pretty beneath his grubby secondhand clothes, Hannibal imagines. Sturdy bones and strong arms. Probably a tiny little dick, too. He shakes his head a little to clear it of such thoughts. Fish boys aren't for such things. "I think you should apologize," he muses. "This is my home, after all. What are you?"

Will's eyes narrow further, moving over that sharp-featured face. Resisting the urge to dig in deeper. To try to see what's beneath that surface. To look away now is to admit defeat, and Will is - he wants to, to look away and back pedal. But.

But, but, but.

It's something in that expression that makes Will reach behind himself, into the sink. Something like expectancy - arrogance, cocksure attitude from this sweet-soft life of his. Or maybe it's his personality. But it gets Will's hackles up, makes him smile back, too many teeth to be polite. Makes him grip one of those slick-wet catfish lying there and bring it around to shove at his chest. "I don't apologize to couyons."

Hannibal steps back in time to avoid the fish itself, but water and blood flick over his waistcoat. A drop hits his ear and his nostrils flare with the stink of it. His mouth falls open in shock at the sheer audacity of Will's gesture. He breathes in rudeness. It makes him retch deep in the pit of his stomach. Now Hannibal's hand does come up, open palm aimed at the side of Will's head. Let his ears ring for this.

Will responds reflexively, too late to block but body following muscle memory - blocked in, a hand comes up, you move with it. It's what he does now, unable to stop the whole of the damage - dazes him, but not as much if he hadn't moved away with the swing of his hand. Now Will's arm comes up, dripping fingers smacking at expensive fabric over that long arm as he takes several steps to the side. Away from where he'd been boxed in, chest rising and falling rapidly, voice gruff when he says with where Hannibal's palm had connected a bright point of ache that would dull out soon, "You don't touch me."

“Non?" Hannibal says, breathless at the heightened awareness of not quite a scuffle. This is more than he's felt in weeks, and if it weren't horrible, it would be glorious. "You should thank me for not throwing you out on your bony little ass." He steps back, eyes still wide, and takes a slim wallet from his pocket. "For paying you...like a whore." It's the height of rudeness. He knows it is, but this boy has lit cruelty in him. He draws out several bills, large ones, many times what the fish is worth, and lets them fall to the floor between him and Will. Let the little pig grovel before Hannibal throws him out.

Will inhales, short and sharp. Going still and tense where he's standing across from Hannibal, watching him with sudden sharp eyes. For a moment - for a /single/ moment, Will thinks about lunging. Lunging over those bills piled on the floor, enough to feed a family for the week if someone was good with it. Tossing the fish in the man's face, taking advantage of his surprise to shove him to the floor. Swing and keep swinging - bite into any hand he put up to fend him off, or hit him back with. Bite into him and /rear back/-

Will straightens. Slow, easy. His gaze steady on the other. He doesn't look down when he steps on the money, on his way to the sink. The fish is tossed in - food shouldn't go to waste - he keeps Hannibal in his peripheral as he rinses his hands, briefly, and reaches for the ice box. "Fuck you." Succinct, bitten out. Feeling anger clawing at his throat, behind his eyes. "Enjoy your fish."

Hannibal watches, waiting with banked joy to see the boy stoop and scramble. How can he afford not to? He doesn't expect the gorgeous, feral hunger that kindles in Will's eyes as he watches, like the razor-teethed pretty little pine martens in the forest of Hannibal's birth. He'd tried to befriend one when he was small and gotten blood down his forearm for his trouble. He watches Will's posture, his slow, careful movements. There's already catfish blood on the floor. Perhaps theirs will join it. But Will seems to tamp down his anger when he speaks. How far, Hannibal wonders. How long? He feels himself make a flicking motion with his fingers. "Run along."

He wants to bite. He wants to twist and smack that arrogant hand aside. Will's hands shake with the desire - choked back and choked down, until it felt like he was suffocating from it. He doesn't respond, just picks up the ice box from the counter and moves around Hannibal without watching him too closely. Careful to keep him from leaving his peripheral vision, as he steps over the money and continues walking for the back door. He doesn't slam it, much as he would like - doesn't, either, leave it wide open for the humid Louisiana insects to find their way inside. He shuts it gently, wordlessly, and only lets his head duck and shoulders tense into a curved hunch when he's out of sight of that grand house, heading back for the docks.

Hannibal takes note of this performance for what it seems to be: a careful facade of correct behavior. Will's control is very good, but Hannibal imagines he can see the lithe body trembling in his sweat-dampened hand-me-downs. Will’s scent is stronger now, overpowering everything else in Hannibal’s nostrils. And Will’s care with the door, well. Hannibal stores that away to take out and look at later, when he’s alone. 

WIll’s absence dawns on him slowly, but as shockingly as Mrs. Boudreaux’s appearance in the kitchen with the promised payment for the fish. Hannibal shrugs at her questions, happy to pretend that his English is not up to answering them. He plucks his money from the floor and trots upstairs to change his clothes. Something with a little starch in it takes their place, blue to darken his eyes and green to lighten his hair. Not formal, but better than Will could ever afford, even if he sold himself instead of his fish. The thought makes Hannibal smile as he trails Will’s scent out the back door and through the streets. It’s bright, clear brimstone in misma of a port city. Hannibal thinks that it will not be difficult to find him at the docks. Hannibal knows that he will be unmistakable himself.

The walk back to the docks is one filled with tension and growing resignation. His temper doesn't disappear, but it cools enough for Will to realize his own mistakes; opening his mouth, the first and foremost. Do the job that's given to you and move on. Don't linger. Will knows this, has had it ingrained in him since he was a child, and to break that ingrained habit now for an arrogant, sharp-tongued boy who looks at others the way the caimans do - it's humiliating. It's worth the whooping that he'll receive, empty handed of both fish and money.

He's right. When he returns, no excuses to offer, the belt bites the same as it always has; ice and then blistering heat. The backs of his thighs, across his back. Able to feel the pull of the welts without it interfering too badly with work - work that is expected of him, now, more than ever. He'll be out late, tonight- out on the docks, standing stiff and throbbing with each movement, working his way through the equipment and tools left to be repaired and fixed. It's where he is when he hears murmurs of those passing by, accents thick and obvious, and when Will looks up - his eyes spot the figure that sticks out like a sore, swollen thumb. Garnering looks from fishermen and the women, butchering the fish brought in, and from Will, straightening painfully up with a hard stare.

It’s full, blazing noon by the time Hannibal reaches the wharf. Will’s scent changes as he nears its source. It’s smoldering now and licked with pain. This is of great interest to Hannibal, who thinks he will remember this bouquet as long as he lives. When he sights him, he meets Will’s stare but takes care to broadcast no belligerence as before. The walk has calmed and focused him. He’s ready to take care now. To stay just out of Will’s reach, not that he seems to be in a state to fight. “For the fish you brought,” Hannibal says, dropping the words like coins in a bucket. He extends his hand to Will, slim fold of hundreds in his fingers. “For your pains.”

They're drawing attention, which is a very wrong thing to be drawing around these parts. Will's gaze sweeps, briefly, over the stares that the other is bringing in, flickering between them. Dragging Will into whatever this is. Tensing up is its own form of punishment, but Will can't help it - doesn't try to, his fingers stiff and unmoving buried in a net that needs knotting. Only briefly, does he look down at Hannibal's hand, before dragging his gaze back up. Wonders at how he would know - but it's a safe enough guess. "I don't want it." There'll be hell to pay, if they're overheard. If word reaches back to his father - it will, he knows. Nothing travels like gossip. They're making too much of it now. Will dips his head back down, methodical movements as he knots. "Put your hand down. You shouldn't be down here-" Why was he down here? "-go back, before you get us both beaten."

“One of us has been already,” Hannibal can’t resist saying, though he says it in French because then it’s easier to warm the words. He drops his hand but reaches for Will’s to fold the money into it. Will’s hand is rough and dirty. Hannibal’s is clean against it, calluses from labor only a few years ago now softened by sweet almond oil but not quite gone. There is a sharp knife in his pocket and a sharper one in his boot. No one will beat him today without bleeding for it. “Go, give it to your boss,” he adds, keeping his voice quiet. “Tell him I have engaged you to do errands for me for the rest of the day.”

Will is prepared for the wrenching of his wrist or the twisting of fingers - not for the press of crisp bills against his hand, the brief press of callouses, old and new. "Possede'," Will hisses, instead of becoming distracted - too distracted - by the sensation. "I didn't agree to that." He moves to jerk his hand back, mouth twisting at the words your boss, because isn't that a laugh, before he catches the eye of his father over Hannibal's shoulder. His expression smooths out, shoulders dipping as he lowers his gaze. Taking the bills leaves an aftertaste like bile on the back of his tongue. He'd rather step into the bayou. Instead, he steps around Hannibal, for his father, and refuses to limp.

It's a short conversation. The throb from his father's grip on his shoulder throbs in time with the welts on his back, his legs, when he turns back for Hannibal - his expression blank, hands empty and tucked into his pockets to hide the way they're fisted and trembling. He can't do anything about the muscle clenched tight in his jaw.

Hannibal tracks the exchange with sharp eyes. He can't quite hear, but the tone is clear enough. This is not an employer, rather a relative. Likely a father or uncle given the resemblance. Hannibal waits, listening, taking in what can be made of the relationship. Not a happy one. The belt around the older man's growing paunch likely matches the marks Hannibal can imagine on Will's skin. "Come along," Hannibal says, when the matter seems settled, and doesn't quite cluck his tongue. He does stretch his legs, though, on the walk back into the city. They're longer and fresher than Will's, but Hannibal privately thinks that sturdy, purposeful, angry Will is wonderful in his own way. "Do you think I'm going to hurt you?" he asks, curious.

The muscle in Will's jaw jumps at the words, the tone of them. Reminded of dogs on the bank that the fishermen keep chained until there's use for them, or called away from Will's tentatively petting fingers. Not so surprising. Will wonders if this man thinks he won't bite, if he's paid. "I think you're going to try." It's blunt, after a long, drawn out silence that Will doesn't appreciate ending. He refuses to limp, but every step is a fresh throb of heat against his skin, rough clothes rubbing against tender bruises and trauma-hot flesh. It flashes through him hot-and-cold, turns his breathing short and sharp through his teeth. "I'll make sure you regret it." It's a grim follow up, mouth pressed into a thing, hard line. Gaze flickering over to Hannibal, before darting away again. "Why are you here?"

"To fetch my errand boy," Hannibal says, showing teeth in his smile as he looks back at Will. "I promise I won't try to hurt you." He draws out the word, making it sharp. Hannibal will take no half-measures. He will not attempt. "You're hurt already." It's just a fact, no malice in it. The sky is blue. The paving stones are dirty. Will is hurting beside him, and Hannibal knows it. He enjoys it. "Would you rather work in the sun all day or do as you like with me?" The answer seems plain to Hannibal. More pain on Will's part likely won't be necessary.

The sharp stressing in the word gives Will little relief; too many other options open in the wake of it, leaving him to grimly study the stone underfoot as they walk. "I'm not your anything." Even if it's not the picture they present, not the one others see as they walk further from the docks, away from traveling and working people. Will trailing behind someone dressed far too nicely for this area. Gazes linger. "I doubt there's - 'doing as I like'. Doing as you like, you mean. There's nothing wrong with working." Even with hot pain licking up his skin. Unpleasant as it was. "Do you want an apology, is that it?"

Hannibal shakes his head once, amused. He has not apologized for anything he said or did to Will. Why should Will apologize for anything said or done? It was spirited and interesting, more interesting than anything Hannibal has yet seen in New Orleans. He might have a long memory, but he doesn’t often hold grudges. “Your fish is fresh,” he says, in French because it’s easier to make it sound like a compliment that way. “It still tastes like mud.” Hannibal has eaten his share of it at dinner, though, fried crisp in cornmeal and so hot it scalds his tongue, dressed with cold, tart tomato chow chow. His mouth waters thinking of the juxtaposition of textures and flavors. “You will do as I like. It will still be what you like.”

"There's a reason they call them mudcats." It's in English - the French he speaks is different than what Will is use to. It's lovely. He'd bite solidly through his tongue before he ever said it out loud. "Make it right, it doesn't." Subtle jab - or, at least, more subtle than their earlier barbs. Ahead of them, Will spots a dog, street skinny, dart from the road into a near alley. He watches it go, makes a note of the area. Darts a look to Hannibal, before he looks away again. "You don't know me. You don't know what I like."

"I will," Hannibal says, with calm assurance. He will learn by watching and asking, seeing what Will says and what he omits. It's such a joy to speak French to Will. It hasn't often been in his mouth since he came to New Orleans. His Japanese has progressed enough that it no longer makes Murasaki wince, and dinner conversation is in English. Hannibal does not speak to other people unless he has to. He tracks Will's attention to the mongrel and back to Hannibal. "Are you so hungry?" he asks, reassessing Will's slender frame. Anything is meat if you're hungry enough. 

"Doubt it." It's retorted with an attempt at as much of that self assurance as Hannibal has, though Will thinks he misses the mark with the faint disgruntled tone that seems to sneak in - his teeth click together at the end, feeling a little less on solid ground. The distraction is almost, not quite, a welcome one. Until it clicks. "No." Will snaps it, tone short and accompanied with a look just as quick and sharp. The idea is offensive enough that his shoulders square, and set off a new round of pain. "She is." Leave her alone goes unsaid, but just as loud as if he had. 

"I know," says Hannibal, because the dog was skinny. "Not so long ago I would have been grateful to have her in a pot." Not today, though, even if Will would countenance the idea. New Orleans has better food to offer, Hannibal knows, even if it will never be Paris. "Now we feed ourselves, we feed her." He's already taking out his wallet, curious to see where Will might point them for lunch. No doubt he knows his way around the Faubourg Marigny. The air around them is filled with the scents of seafood boiled and fried and a dozen other ways, and the sounds of tinny jazz echoing out of open, beckoning doors. Will will know, and will lead Hannibal's feet surely. He'll likely receive better service than the stranger that Hannibal obviously is, even one with money. He beckons, ready to trust Will's appetite. 

Will studies Hannibal for several long, drawn out moments. It's a loaded statement, something that reminds Will of the softened callouses he'd felt. He wants to look closer, again. Instead, Will's gaze dips. Removes himself from the temptation to instead have a brief debate with himself about going along with this - whatever this was. He thinks of the dog, skinny and no doubt nosing for scraps in that alley, and feels his mouth tighten. "Stop showing off. You're going to get us into a scrap." It's directed at Hannibal, as Will moves past him - careful not to touch, and careful to watch him as he moves past. Past open door restaurants on the main street, taking them down a side street and toward neighborhood homes, rough looking and worn down.

Hannibal follows gamely, putting his wallet away as he does. A scrap would be interesting, but less so than where Will might lead now. The scrutiny tasted of genuine interest, pleasing Hannibal. Will ought to look at him. He ought to care to look. He ought to debate within himself more so that Hannibal can watch it happening. Will is very interesting to watch, Hannibal thinks. He cares for dogs, which is very useful information. As they leave the neighborhood, Hannibal sniffs the air for the dog’s scent, noting it so they can find her when they return. He’d normally choose to fill his nostrils with anything else, preferably now with the scent of Will, tired and aching and still with banked coals of anger. But Will cares for dogs, and so Hannibal takes note of her. 

The silence offers a false sense of security, the longer that it drags on. Will even manages to relax into it - slightly. He leads them down a roughened street that hasn't seen care for too long, listening to music and voices drift from neighboring houses, people on their front porches staring and waving. Will raises a hand in response each time, but doesn't linger, or stop for conversation.

When they reach the house Will intends, the fence is open and so is the front door. There's sweet music drifting out, and the scent of good food - seafood and spices, baked fresh and fried bread. Will leads them up the uneven path, up the stairs - looking back once to murmur, "You call her Mawmaw, or you don't speak to her at all." Before he raps his knuckles against the wooden doorframe, and steps inside. It's homey, with too many love seats and chairs settled in the living room and down the hall pressed together. The tall, dark-skinned woman that steps out of the adjoined kitchen drying her hands has a heavy stare she moves from Will to Hannibal. "Mon petit chiot," she greets Will, and despite the stare, it's warm. "Who is your shadow?"

Hannibal nods at the advice and follows Will inside, staying close. The name feels too intimate, too familiar, but Hannibal trusts him in this, too. He observes the interior of the house out of the corner of his eyes, his focus on Will's back, the stretch of his shoulders, sore skin under faded cotton. Hannibal only steps in front of him to answer the question and extend his hand. "A hungry friend," he offers, bowing over her damp, roughened hand as deeply as he would a queen's, for what else is she in this house? "I was told...Mawmaw?" His voice curves around the name, accent struggling with the diphthong. He straightens and meets her eyes, hoping to see welcome there, or at least acceptance. 

Will's mouth twists - friend, indeed - but he stays politely quiet, shuffled out of the way, so that Mawmaw could continue her scrutiny of Hannibal. It's sharp, brutal, Will knows, to those she finds lacking. "I am Mawmaw," she agrees. She smiles, creating creases in her weathered face. Will is disappointed. "Come then, shadow. You will be fed. Petit chiot?"

"I can help," Will murmurs. Disappointed, again, when she waves at him. "Non, you will sit. Take your shadow, shoo. Mawmaw will feed you, yes." She points, without asking what they would like, and Will resigns himself to the harsh scratch of clothes and pressure against his legs when he moves over to the loveseat.

Hannibal feels Will's disappointment and wonders at it, but Mawmaw's smile feels genuine, so Hannibal inclines his head graciously. Hospitality is something he feels that should never be taken for granted. The nickname suits him. Shadows are safe places to hide. Safe for Hannibal when he is not safe for others. He follows Will to sit, offering him a cushion, though the loveseats are still well-stuffed despite their age. "Keep pressure off the bruises until I can tend to them," Hannibal tells him quietly. It isn't an order, only something he hopes that Will will do. A lesson learned before textbooks gave him a reason for it. 

Will's stare is hard when he swings it to Hannibal, leveling him with an inscrutable look. "I never asked to be tended to." Not for pities sake or for whatever reason Hannibal might have tucked up his expensive sleeves. Even with his ginger movements, the loveseat inspires fire where he rests against it. It's only a moment, with the quiet hush of a conversation in French passing in the next room, before an older man, back hunched from age and work, appears and settles down two tall glasses of what Will knows to be sweet tea. He says nothing, even to Will's murmured thanks, and disappears out the front door after a wink.

Hannibal murmurs thanks as well, in French and then English, thirsty for the well-iced glass whatever it contains. His collar is damp with sweat, and so he unbuttons it before reaching to drink. Syrup and cheap black tea, he thinks, tasting and then swallowing in careful gulps. Sustaining. Revivifying. He knows Will didn't ask. Hannibal doubts that he asks for much. Asking incurs debt. It requires repayment. Hannibal is well on his way to being a doctor, though, whatever else he may be, and determined to tend to Will sooner or later. No need to make an argument of it now, though. "Thank you for this," he offers, because this is Will's hospitality too, that guided him here. 

It isn't what Will had been expecting. Not now, not ever - not from this man. His eyes narrow over the top of his glass, fingers tightening on cool, slick glass. Watching Hannibal, and refusing to become distracted by the movement of his throat swallowing. He wonders at the play, here, but nonetheless says, slowly, "You're welcome." Just as Mawmaw returns from the kitchen.

"Here we are, cher." She's carrying two steaming plates generously filled with her crawfish étouffée, greens - and a roll, fat and warm, still shining from the butter melted on top. Will accepts the plate when she gives it to him, stretching to kiss her cheek with a murmured, "First pick is yours. Next week." She looks satisfied when she straightens, then turns to hand Hannibal his own.

Hannibal inclines his head to Will's acceptance of thanks. No other response is appropriate. He smells the food coming before it arrives: tomato and alliums and a dozen spices to sauce the muddy shellfish, clean yeast and white rice, and the tang of vinegar seasoning bitter greens slick with salt pork. His stomach turns over with appetite. This is the best this house has to offer, and it does so proudly. Hannibal will accept it as such. He does not know this woman well enough to kiss her as familiarly as Will, so his lips touch the air by her cheek as he thanks her in turn and takes his plate. "A treasure," he murmurs, turning the rice over into the sauce with deft strokes of the cheap fork. The first bite burns his tongue with heat and cayenne, but he keeps eating, scooping the greens into his roll so their juices soak into the tender bread.

Will doesn't offer conversation as they eat - nothing beyond a quiet, "Clean your plate." When Mawmaw has stepped back into the kitchen. It's quiet, except for the occasional body moving through the house, those from the neighborhood stepping in and further back to have hushed conversations over the music. It isn't a place that Will frequents often, despite the open invitation for the neighborhood; it will be a difficult conversation, later, to tell his father Mawmaw will have first pick of catch. It's something offered usually to those who pay well, or have something to offer in return - but this is what he can give her, and first pick goes a long way. He eats methodically, careful to ensure nothing falls or goes to waste. 

Hannibal thinks of not only cleaning his plate but asking for seconds. But perhaps that is only politeness to his uncle’s chef and not here. One is enough to fill Hannibal’s belly. He considers his empty plate after he sets it down, deliberating the actions that ought to be taken next. “Could we ask something for the dog?” he wonders aloud. It would be down to Will to do it. The manner of it would be foreign to Hannibal, but the suggestion is not. He said that she would eat what they did. There is also the matter of payment, but he trusts Will to tell him when and how that might be handled.

When Will is finished, he piles their plates - murmuring quick and quiet, near a hiss, "No. Never ask for food for street dogs." The question was a surprise. Will had been prepared to return later, without this arrogant man with him. He's still surprised, as he turns to stare hard at Hannibal before he rises. He has to turn his face away to hide the deep grimace, but then he's walking their plates to the kitchen - Mawmaw following him out, patting his cheek. "You are too skinny, petit chiot. Come to Mawmaw more often. And you -" to Hannibal, when she spots him. Smile sly and eyes sharp. "-shadow, you come back as well, yes? You bring an appetite and a favor, Mawmaw will welcome you. Git." She waves them on. Will goes out onto the porch, stepping aside to where the older man is smoking heavily.

When Will lingers, the man wordlessly rises up and steps back into the house. Will waits.

Hannibal will remember this house, certainly. He thinks of what favor to bring Mawmaw the next time his feet carry him here. A bottle of wine, perhaps. An offer to sharpen her knives or shuck oysters, perhaps. To peel crawfish with nimble fingers. Something to consider. The smell of fresh tobacco smoke makes Hannibal crave a cigarette. He rarely indulges, but now with a full belly, one feels welcome. He doesn’t know the old man well enough to ask for one, though, so he passes by. “Will you come home with me?” he asks Will in an undertone, looking for his choice in his eyes. They might have a drink to aid digestion. A bath to wash away the sweat of the day. Even a nap. The thought of Will curled in his bed pleases Hannibal very much. Perhaps Will might even find himself pleased to be there. 

Will studies Hannibal when he moves past, ever-darting eyes lingering, the way he now seemingly tends to do with him. He doesn't immediately answer, watching him, instead as he waits. Surprise - confusion - and, finally, wary interest. The last, he tries to hide. On the porch steps, he's taller than Hannibal by a few inches. It feels like an allowance, rather than a simple choice in positions. He still hasn't answered when the sound of shuffling footsteps returns, and the old man is there with a handful of food wrapped in tinfoil. He accepts it, takes the pat on the cheek the same way he'd delivered Mawmaw's kiss - with a discomfort that's almost fond - before he steps after Hannibal. Hands full, warming too quickly from hot food. 

"Why are you asking me?" It's the first thing he asks, when he finally answers - not quite an answer either way. Taking the food given to him and returning back the way they came, trying to think of where he'll leave the food if the dog isn't there and damnably distracted instead by who he's walking with.

Hannibal smiles at him, teeth bright. "For the continued pleasure of your company, of course," he says, as earnestly as he can manage and still flourish the words. Will seems like a curious boy, even though Hannibal has no doubt that that curiosity has often gotten him into trouble. Relying on that curiosity now, he doesn't touch Will as they walk together. Hannibal occupies himself with finding the dog's scent again. It turns his stomach a little when he does. "This way." He leads the way down one alley and into the next, head tilted up, following his nose. They find the dog huddled between two dumpsters, almost underneath a pile of soggy cardboard. Hannibal stands back to watch Will with her, eyes sharp with interest.

Will is unimpressed with the flourish in that answer, watching Hannibal from his peripheral as they walk. If anything, it makes him more suspicious - nothing good comes from people with more money than sense, and he knows that. A belt might be the least of his worries. That thought stutters to a halt when he turns to watch Hannibal - tip his nose into the breeze. Like a dog.

The fact they find the dog is unexpected. That it starts growling at them isn't. Will stares at Hannibal for as long as he dares, before he starts unwrapping tinfoil from around discarded food - stepping forward and crouching down, inching the food closer with slow nudging movements. Pausing every time the dog makes a false lunge, teeth snapping. When ears prick forward with interest at the scent of food, Will smiles, small and fond. "How did you know?" He asks, quiet, so as to not disturb the animal.

"The scent, of course," Hannibal tells him, just as quietly, as though it ought to be obvious. He crouches down to watch the negotiation between Will and the dog, clearly a practiced one on Will's part. A soft heart and a gentle manner with animals. Useful information that Hannibal stores away. He has dim memories of childhood pets and hunting dogs at the lodge, but they are too close to other memories. He avoids them. 

Hannibal whistles softly at the dog, more to alert her to his proximity than in any hope of distracting her from the food. He extends the back of his hand for her to sniff if she likes, though not so close that he couldn't snatch it out of the way if she lunged. Hannibal finds himself singing softly under his breath to lure her to him, a tuneless, half-remembered lullaby. He could not honestly say that he wants to stroke her, but he would if she allowed it. He wants Will to see that, at least. 

Will doesn't turn completely to look at Hannibal, but he feels him settle. Watches him from his peripheral, as the dog's ears twitches. Her nose tips up, scents them both; uneven growls bursting from her ever so often. She's skinny enough Will can count the ribs and knobs of her spine, The scars around her neck where surely a collar dug in too harshly, for too long. Will feels for her, even as he nudges the food closer. It seems to do the trick; when she lunges, its for the food, eating fast enough she chokes a few times. Will wants to pet her, and refrains. She's too easily spooked.

Instead, he watches Hannibal closely, his thighs burning where he crouches. He's wavering. He doesn't want to be - kindness is so easily falsified for ones own purpose - but this, he'll remember, and turn over in his thoughts for later. Kneeling in a filthy alley, singing to a street dog. "You're a strange one." Soft, not to disturb the dog. "But - thank you."

Hannibal inclines his head graciously and rises, dusting the filth from his knees before extending a hand to Will to help him up if he permits it. Skin stretched tight in a crouch must sing with pain over his thighs. Hannibal remembers that, pebbles under his knees. Hours for agony to become a radiating ache. Blinking, Hannibal shakes the memory away and locks the door after it forcefully. 

"We haven't been introduced," he says softly, in the same warm, musical French. It won't be anything as trite as a fresh start, but Hannibal knows that he must now show Will the manners that were so absent in their altercation that morning, because Will is bending toward him. Toward the idea of him. "My name is Hannibal."

Will tries to avoid touching people when he can - when it's possible.Tries to avoid being touched. It opens up of a world of too much - now, Will studies that hand offered to him with an inscrutable expression, flicking between Hannibal's face and his hand. There's a flicker there, in those eyes, when Will means to look away; ripples on the water, disturbing the surface, before he blinks. Will's eyes sharpen, and before he realizes, his hand reaches out and curls around a pampered palm. The rise up is worse than settling down, making his fingers tighten, knuckles whitening.

"Will." English, first. His head inclined as he studies Hannibal, finding himself searching after that earlier disturbance. Those ripples. In his French, now - testing and watching - "Finding her to feed and inviting me to your home doesn't mean I'm going to fuck you, if that's why you're doing this."

Hannibal allows himself to be inspected, because being really, truly examined by Will is becoming a pleasure as much as his tight grip is. A dangerous one to indulge, Hannibal knows, since Will's perceptive, lovely eyes might very well see something that will drive him far, far away from Hannibal. "No, it doesn't mean that," he agrees. He squeezes Will's hand once, gently, before letting it go. He wants to reach out and steady him, lift him and carry him away from that resigned wince. He buries the thought as soon as it presents itself.

"I am going home," Hannibal adds, with no less gentleness. "To bathe and drink wine and think of you. You may join me if you like." His eyes flick once to the dog, now curled and dozing fitfully, her belly full, before he turns and starts back in the general direction of the Boudreux's home. Purposefully, but without lengthening his stride as much as he had before. No sense not to make it as easy as possible for Will to follow him.

Will continues to watch Hannibal as he slips away from him, leaving him standing there. There's no little boy tantrum to be seen with his blunt comment, no hand raised away from the streets where it would be easily overheard, even if there wouldn't be many who would dare to intervene. Will stands there and stares after the retreating back of him, nice clothes marred at the knees. Unbuttoned at the collar, a peek of throat under hot Louisiana sky. It would be smart to return to the docks, now. Return to his work and make up some story about being dismissed after the errands, to nip rumor and gossip in the bud before they can bloom. Well - anymore than they already have.

Will thinks of the urge to bite into soft, pampered skin of a cocksure bastard calling him a whore. To hurt as much as possible. Will blinks, looks down at the dog at his feet, ears twitching and legs kicking every so often. When he looks back up at Hannibal's retreating back, he steps forward. Once, twice. Measured, painful footsteps following the invisible path left behind, until he's near caught up. Hands in his pockets and chin tucked when he offers, "Take a left. It's quicker."

Hannibal smells Will before he hears him and listens to him long before he turns to speak. He takes the left, though. Will is hurting, and all Hannibal wants to do is stand and feel it. To imagine pressing his fingers into bruises and pinching welts. But he also wishes that he could wave his hand and transport them home so that Will was spared even a single painful step. Neither is possible. "To tend to you. You should allow me that," he says solemnly. "Next year I'll be a doctor." Barely, but it's a fact. His studies have progressed rapidly in France. Aptitude is a word his teachers sprinkle in every conversation and evaluation. He will study more, though, declare a specialization and apply for residencies. He's looking forward to it. Will is not his patient, though. Will never will be. 

Will huffs out something that, generously, could be called a laugh - short and quiet and more breath than tone. The serious way in which Hannibal delivers it - not quite an offer - is amusing, if only distantly so. A doctor. It's surprising only in what he's seen so far of this sharp-faced peacock. "What can you do for welts?" He doesn't look over as he asks it, continuing walking over uneven, dirty stone. He's only a step or so behind Hannibal. When the next right presents itself, Will takes it wordlessly. Through the back alleys is a dangerous practice, but if they're swift, they might not run into too much trouble. "Will you pay them for their sicknesses and hurts, too?"

“Only you have that privilege.” Hannibal is sincere as he takes a turn following Will, letting him set the pace while he stores the memory of that not-quite laugh. What a sound. What a wonder that he should be alive to hear it. 

“Hot water,” he says, after an unnecessary but pleasant moment of consideration. “Or ice, as you like. A salve to numb the skin so you can sleep.” Hannibal knows he won’t be able to sleep for thinking of Will’s sturdy thighs, as whipped and anointed as any Passion. Hannibal may never sleep again. 

"It's a privilege, is it?" Will cuts him a look, but only briefly, mouth twisted - in something like a sharp, wry smile, as opposed to the grimaces he's shown up until now. They walk the path he most often takes to get to the Boudreaux home, familiar enough to Will that he could likely take the path with his eyes closed. It's one that brings them out into the better off neighborhoods, where it's the appearance of Will that drags in stares and whispers, as opposed to Hannibal at the docks. A trade. 

"You shouldn't waste medicine." A salve is only as good as how often it's used. It won't matter much come morning, when Will is out before the sun on the docks and in the pirogues, irritating skin and bruising all over again. 

“Waste?” Hannibal thinks a moment after questioning Will’s choice of words. That he thinks so little of himself, that he is so familiar with discomfort that he has made a kind of peace with it. “It will be grateful for the privilege,” he finally says, eyes as warm as if Will were looking at them. “I certainly will be.”

The Boudreaux house looms, as ancient as anything can be in the Americas. Hannibal stops short and slips his shoes off, holding them in one hand before he opens the door for Will. A habit from Lady Murasaki’s housekeeping. The kitchen is empty, though redolent with the smell of lunch’s roast chicken. Hannibal helps himself to a bottle of Sancerre Blanc that had likely been chilled for it. “Glasses, please.” And he nods at the rack, since his hands are full. “If you’ll follow me?”

Will looks at him sharply, now, but only briefly. Wonders, not for the first time, if he's being mocked. He thinks it could sound like this, from that mouth; a stark contrast to the razor sharp cruelty hurled at him in return from before, but instead warm and soft in that accented voice. Still just as dangerous. If it had just been that cruel light he spotted in his expression, Will would have known what to say; he keeps quiet, now.

His head ducks again when they enter the home, even though they don't run into anyone. In such a grand house, it's a surprise that it ever happens. His gaze darts to the rack on the counter, only briefly, before he inclines his head and rinses his hands. Excess water is flicked into the sink, where catfish had rested only a few short hours ago. The glasses Will moves to hold with damp hands are too nice to smudge. He's very, very careful to keep a firm hold on both, less they end up in shards at their feet as they walk. "I don't think people will be too pleased with you for this - hospitality." It isn't the word he'd been thinking of, but it's the politest one that comes close. His voice is quieter than it had been, given now their surroundings.

“I am their guest,” Hannibal promises archly in equally quiet French. “You are mine. So you are safe.” He is very pleased with Will’s care with the glasses and the cleanliness of his hands. Such perfect, small gestures. He leads the way upstairs, one flight, then two. He thinks of how miserable they must be for Will to climb.

The rooms Hannibal has been given are on the third floor of the east wing. He stops on the landing of the second, though, and knocks softly on the lintel of the little library nook. His aunt will be reading after lunch while his uncle naps. Murasaki looks up and comes to join them, her eyes on Will though she speaks to Hannibal, telling him in quiet Japanese that he was missed at lunch. Hannibal embraces her, kisses her cheek, and apologizes in the same language. He asks if she will give him something for bruises, something she lent him before. She agrees, of course, but her worried eyes linger on him, wondering if he’s been hurt. Hannibal responds by beckoning Will forward and making introductions. Graham, that had been the name on the ice box. He offers it as Will’s surname after presenting his aunt, in English, of course.

For a moment, Will is aching and genuinely mortified by the fact that Hannibal has apparently searched the woman out. She's beautiful, kind eyes in a soft face, and the words - foreign to Will - are spoken soft and elegant. Will's gaze stays dipped, behind Hannibal until he's gestured forward and introduced. He wants to shoot the man a look, and has to refrain - wonders, instead, at the fact he's being introduced at all. Words are one thing. This is another.

Hands full and too anxious of dropping the glasses, Will can only greet her with a flickering look and a genuine, "Madame. It's very nice to meet you." Dipping his head lower, shoulders softened. As unobtrusive as possible. This, while not lady of the house, is certainly a lady; where Will's manners have failed him elsewhere today, they don't now, though he doesn't know how far they go to make up for his appearance. "Thank you for having me." 

Murasaki searches Will’s face with soft, dark eyes for a long moment before her eyes drift to Hannibal and then back to Will. Hannibal can see calculation, though a casual observer would notice nothing but a silent, placid smile as she reaches to take a book from the shelf behind her, a little leather bound field guide filled with colored prints of insects. She slips it into Will’s shirt pocket before she steps back and slips past them, going to her rooms to retrieve the salve that Hannibal had asked her. 

He has watched this entire exchange with wordless wonderment, considering his lovely aunt’s response with something like awe. “She likes you,” he says, a moment after she leaves, his voice a little hoarse. “Come along.” Hannibal turns on his heel and leads the way upstairs to his rooms. He wants a glass of wine and a chance to wash and think.

The back of his neck burns from the studious staring. It occurs to him, too late, that he not well be understood - his mortification turns to surprised confusion, automatically stepping aside to allow her to move past without risk of touching him. The weight of the book drags at his shirt, and Will darts wide eyes from it to Hannibal. "She - ?" He starts, in a voice like a hurried whisper. It feels nearly as if he's being mocked again, if not for the hint of hoarse to Hannibal's voice. It's surprisingly distracting. "Elle est charmante." That, at least, seems safe enough.

"What am I meant to do with this?" Will, quiet and cautious at being overheard in case this peacock sees fit to seek out anymore members of the household less than pleasant, asks. The weight of the book feels precious, even as it pulls at the fabric of his shirt, dragging at his collar. It's nice - too nice, judging by its bound cover - and, perhaps, some sort of test? His fingers twitch against glass at the thought of sifting through its contents, and Will carefully tightens his hold.

“Keep it,” Hannibal says over his shoulder as they go upstairs. “It’s not from this house. It’s hers.” He recognizes the volume from the library in his uncle’s house in Paris, though he’s never taken it down to peruse. Will is correct, he thinks. Murasaki is very charming, like Hannibal, who she taught to charm, and like Hannibal, she always has her own agenda. It is a source of frustration for Hannibal now that he doesn’t know what that agenda is where Will is concerned. 

Hannibal opens the door to his suite, leaving his shoes outside for the servants to clean. He gestures Will inside and follows after, fingers already working the wrapping from the neck of the wine bottle. He takes a corkscrew from a drawer in the sitting room and applies it with focused interest rather than ask Will to sit or take his shoes off or any other direction. He wants to see what he will do, what he’ll look at or touch. Hannibal is neat with his things, but he didn’t pack lightly for the trip to New Orleans. 

It's not helpful. Will isn't entirely certain why he thought it would be. Would it be an insult to slip the book back where it came from, when there was a chance? He's fairly positive if he flipped through it, he could memorize the contents. His memory was good enough, there would be no need to put such an expensive volume at risk by bringing it home - potential damage, or found and sold to put food on the table, at best. Liquor in his father's hand, at worst. Will has his doubts about how often he'll be returning to this house after this, regardless. Though something about that speculative silence had hinted at much deeper waters.

Will wordlessly settles the glasses on the nearest table free of anything on it. He has half a thought of standing still, to avoid tracking any dirt or dried mud through the room, but - he thinks of the face Hannibal might make, if he saw any. Thinks of what he had looked like when Will had shoved a fish at him. Will takes the opportunity to move from him, hands kept to himself but eyes sweeping over the contents of the room. The neat and organized lay of items and furniture. "Is this what your room looked like, before you came here?" He isn't talking about the layout - there's an air, here. Rich little boy seemingly tucked into every crevice. Extravagant, but - almost incomplete, somehow. 

Hannibal crosses to the table where Will set the glasses and pours the wine, each half full. He takes one for himself and extends the other to Will. But he does not cross to him, takes great care not to encroach into his personal space now. If Will was wary in the free air, how much more on edge must he feel now behind several doors in Hannibal's sitting room? Slow movements are called for. Careful questions and the clear freedom to choose for himself. If not, Hannibal will lose him, he senses. "It is not," he answers, after a sip of wine. Now doesn't feel like the time to propose a toast. The air is hardly celebratory. "At home the attic is mine, so the light is better. And I can do what I like with the walls." Usually what Hannibal wants to do is cover them with sketches, so that when he lies in bed he can study the progression of them, whether the drawings are anatomical or still lifes. So that he will see them in his dreams instead of terrors.

After another sip, Hannibal seats himself on the chaise lounge and does his best to give the appearance of relaxation. He gestures Will to armchair opposite if he cares to take it and considers carefully what might be said to him, how to ease this careful, angry boy who keeps such close company with discomfort. The issue of Murasaki's gift lingers between them still, Hannibal feels. "You may leave the book here, if you like. If its presence at home offends." Perhaps Will's father might take offense to it. Perhaps there is no room for such things in the shack or the boat Will calls home.

"Why is the light important?" If it's important enough to mention, it's important enough to pursue. Will glances over when movement from his periphery catches his attention, studying the glass that's offered to him for a few moments before he steps over to take it. "... Thank you." Fingers cradling glass, heavier now with the wine. It's cool against his fingers, and while he doesn't sip immediately, he takes it with him when he returns to studying the room. He's careful to only turn his back when he's stepped far enough away that he'll have a moment or two of time to react, even if he's rushed. 

At the mention of the book, Will's free fingers touch it - careful to do so through the cotton of his shirt before he remembers that his hands are clean. He half turns toward Hannibal, sweeps his gaze over where he's settled himself, and the open seat. How much closer it is than where he's standing now, and how vulnerable he'd be if he settled into it. What it might feel like against his welted back and thighs, as opposed to Mawmaw's loveseat with its worn thin upholstery and plush cushions. "It doesn't offend," he answers, almost absently, body weight shifting. "But it's - a lot. Too much." And Will doesn't like the thought of being indebted even to someone as charming as her. Even this pushes past the boundaries of what he'd allow himself, usually. He doesn't know why he's still here - but that's a little bit of a lie, isn't it? "She doesn't know me." Will, with quick strides to avoid showing just how much he'd like to limp, just how close he might be to it - crosses over, and settles himself gingerly down into the chair. Chin up like a dare, eyes flickering away only once before holding steady.

Instead of answering regarding the light, Hannibal takes a sketchbook from a trunk near the chaise. An artist needs light. He filled it last week with scenes of Bourbon Street and Jackson Park, the French Quarter as he remembered it from an outing. A memento of a time and place to keep when he returns to Paris. He sets it on the arm of Will’s chair for him to peruse if he likes. The sharp scent of his pain is overwhelming this close. Perhaps this is a distraction from it that Hannibal can offer and Will can accept. 

A lot and too much sound like offense to Hannibal, but he does his best to understand. “She doesn’t know you,” Hannibal agrees, meeting Will’s steady, brave eyes. “But she knows me. Perhaps she wanted to offer an alternative to my company.” Hannibal mouth twitches up in the suggestion of a grin before he finishes off his wine and sets the glass aside. “I would like to offer you the same, if I may?”

Will blinks, the once, when a sketchbook is brought to his attention. He isn't sure whether to be surprised or not - if he had to guess, Will didn't think this was something he would have pegged Hannibal a fan of. But then again, what did he know of him, really? Even with his - problem, he'd done his best to avoid looking too deeply. Peering too close. His fingers touch the edge of the sketchbook, but don't open it yet, despite the itch to do so - the pages flutter, when Will lets his fingers drag. He spots the hint of graphite, or charcoal, some dark smudging close to the edge, making his gaze linger before it rises again.

Will's brows raise, taking his first sip while keeping his gaze steady over the glass. It's a new taste, but not unpleasant - his thumb rubs against the smooth glass when he lowers it again. He's just as aware of the weight in his pocket as he'd been since the madame had put it there, just as aware as he is of the agony stiffening his muscles across his back and thighs. "So you don't know either." Why she'd deem fit him of a gift like this. Somehow, for some reason, it eases some of the tension across his shoulders. Will inclines his head. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

Hannibal isn't sure what to make of Will's treatment of the sketchbook. He's used to people exclaiming over his drawings, inclining his head graciously to effusive praise. Will hardly opens it and says nothing about it. Hannibal frowns internally but lets nothing show on his face. "The bathroom is that way," he says, extending a hand. "You're welcome to wash. Take your ease." Perhaps Will might accept a reprieve from having to sit and stand and trot after Hannibal. There are two locking doors between the shower and the sitting room. That might reassure him. "Put your clothes out, and I'll have them washed and dried before you leave." Too much for Will to accept, maybe, Hannibal thinks, but he has to offer. The thought of bathing and then stepping back into dirty clothes makes his skin crawl. He wants to offer Will a robe and watch him try to understand what silk feels like against his bruises. Hannibal wants to feel them himself, through it.

Will's fingers, where they'd been unknowingly trailing over the edge of the sketchbook, halt with Hannibal's words. "Is that your polite way of saying I stink, or an opportunity to hide something you think I might get into when it's your turn?" He doesn't mention the discomfort in the offer, the idea of being vulnerable in this too-extravagant place. He thinks Hannibal likely fancies himself knowing, anyway. He doesn't deflect with a mention of an extra pair of clothes - doesn't know what he'd say, he thinks, if he were offered some. He still wonders if that was thought of - and some part of him wondering, too, treacherous and thrilling, how sharp that vulnerability would sit. Worse or better, if Hannibal were near? His fingers continue their slow stroking over the rough edges of paper.

"Neither. Only preference." Hannibal says, mild and calm. Will is still holding the sketchbook, still playing with it. His hands are clever, with long fingers that must be strong. Hannibal fixes them in his memory to draw later. "I'll take my turn first, if you like." A guest should have the first wash, though, the courtesy due him. Hannibal knows better than to suggest that they compromise by sharing the shower. He rises gracefully and thumbs open the first button of his shirt. His chest is bare beneath it. He works down the front, eyes never leaving Will's. Hannibal knows what his body looks like, knows that a tease is far more erotic than a proud display. "Will you be all right here? I won't be long." Will might dash out as soon as he hears running water, of course, but Hannibal doesn't think he will. He thinks that Will might want his curiosity satisfied, if nothing else.

In the quiet, no smooth jazz or neighborhood voices to interrupt the silence, the sound of Will's sharp inhale is too loud. Too obvious. It takes too much energy not to let his focus wander, to keep revealed skin to his peripheral vision. He nearly breaks at the hinted reveal of sharp collar bones. Despite the fact it's Hannibal who's undressing, Will is the one who feels that clench of vulnerability keeping their eyes locked - it hadn't occurred to him that it would be both better and worse. "Seems polite. One of us is used to Louisiana heat." His fingers have stilled on the sketchpad again. There's no easy movement this time when he notices; too jerky, now. Distracted. "By all means - take your time." It feels like something between a game and a challenge, every other moment - Will would like a moment to relax, to breathe in the empty space and, perhaps, take a peek at those sketches when he's sure he isn't being watched by those dark eyes.

The sudden, almost gasping breath is not lost on Hannibal, but he knows better than to acknowledge it. Instead he nods, murmuring thanks as politely as he would speak to his aunt if she offered him a macaron after dinner. He shrugs out of his shirt on the way to the bedroom, letting it hang over his shoulder carelessly. A summer tan has smoothed out most of the old scars, but the suggestion of them remains, broken arm and lashed back. Hannibal wears them well, refusing to loathe his body. He's made it strong so no one should ever try to hurt him again. So he can hurt them so badly that they never hurt another. 

He leaves the bedroom door open behind him and the bathroom door open behind it. Will could watch if he wants to, could even come to join. He can certainly hear the rustle of Hannibal stripping and placing his clothes in the hamper. The removal of socks and belt. The spray of water and the groan as Hannibal steps under it. Suggestion and possibility are the keys to persuasion, Hannibal has found, and what is seduction but not persuasion? Will Will be comfortable in this, he wonders. Does he know the pleasures of his own bodies and others, or only the cruelty of both?

Peacock, Will thinks, resisting the taunting temptation that seems to come naturally to the man. Until, at least, he passes by - even Will's considerable self control falters and fails him, lashes dipped as he turns his head to watch the way fabric falls and lays against tanned skin. It's the hint of lighter patterns that has him looking closer, and a split second too late - Will's vision isn't the best with details at longer distances, growing worse as he gets older, and the patterns are just faint enough for his mind to recognize too late. There's a story, there, or too many of them - the desire to trace them is abrupt, and almost immediately dismissed before he thinks to bring the thought back. Look at it and the temptation just a little closer.

There's no quiet now thanks to the open doors. He isn't surprised by it - only that he thinks, privately, he prefers this sound than if there was the crackle-static of jazz being played through old radios. He sips to it, ducks his head against the heat it brings up his throat, and finally, with somewhat privacy, flips through the sketchbook. It's good enough that he recognizes the places that are sketched, the buildings that are darkened to suggest shadows, small details added and, Will notes with amusement, some missed. Or omitted entirely.

Hannibal showers like he's just come from a fourteen hour shift in the cadaver room. Like he hasn't had hot water to bathe in for weeks, because he remembers when that was the case. He luxuriates in it, but he also scrubs every inch of his skin until it tingles. He resists the impulse to masturbate. He isn't sure Will is paying any attention, after all, but he has a suspicion. Thinking about Will in the shower proves unwise. Hannibal is half hard when he steps out of the shower. He ignores this in favor of rubbing himself dry and then wrapping the towel around his hips. He'll leave the black silk robe on the hook for Will. Taking another towel to dry his hair, he wanders back out into the sitting room, a picture of damp nonchalance, to see what Will has been up to in his absence.

Admittedly, the sound of water drumming against porcelain becomes something of background noise - except for ever so often, when there's the unmistakable sound of something flesh and human that interrupts the sprat. It makes the hair on the back of his neck rise, bringing his attention away from where he's slowly flipping through the sketchbook until it gradually refocuses. It's a strange little routine, as Hannibal, indeed, takes his time - it lights up something warm and impatient in the pit of his belly that he has to not think about, if he'd like to stand anytime soon without ruining the lay of his jeans, focusing hard on the strokes across rough paper. Will takes care not to smudge any of them. The wine is finished, empty glass set aside. Warmed from it, not quite tipsy, but softer around the edges for it.

The abrupt plunge into near-silence pulls him out of his thoughts. He only hears the quiet footsteps that eventually follow because he's straining listening for them. "You've done good work." No fanfare, just blunt truth - Will isn't precisely creatively inclined, but he knows these streets. The likeness is admirable. "Don't figure you sell these -" -damp skin, when Will looks up and pauses. Flushed from the heat of the shower. So many sharp lines, shoulders and collarbones, the curve of ribs. Only a suggestion of softness in some places, abruptly becoming all of the places Will wants to press hard fingers into. The sketchbook remains open, if briefly forgotten.

Hannibal pours himself another glass of wine instead of allowing himself to look at Will during the critique, though afterward he empties the last few ounces of the bottle into Will's glass before setting it down. The movements, languid and telegraphed, bring him very close to Will's chair. Hannibal perches on the arm, bare back inches from Will's shoulder, and twists to pluck the sketchbook from his hands. "I never sell them, no," he agrees, voice calm and even, though his breathing is shallow. "I do gift them to friends, at times, if they ask." Hannibal has never done such a thing in his life, but he reasons that Will might give him the chance to make it truth. Hannibal has no great qualms about falsehoods, but he knows that people don't like finding out about them, usually because they preferred them to whatever the truth turns out to be. He's edging toward a kind of friendship with Will, he thinks. No one is throwing fish or getting slapped.

Closer, closer - and Will can see hard truths left behind on Hannibal's skin. No cursive, just harsh lines with few clean edges. They've faded well, which is all that can be said for them. Will can't stop looking, from the corner of his eye - close enough he can feel the heat roll off of his skin from the shower. That even his poor eyesight can watch the occasional roll of a missed droplet down sun darkened skin. "Figure they must count themselves lucky, your friends." Almost, not quite, absently said. Will's attention elsewhere, lost watching skin and scars shift from muscles underneath. He looked soft, in his fine clothes. He looks strong, now, like he might have done more damage than Will had anticipated he was capable of doing, if he'd have given into impulse earlier and lunged for him.

There's something underneath the surface of this sharp-tongued peacock. Too much for his own good, Will thinks. He isn't entirely sure if it's for Will's or Hannibal's own good that he means. The temptation to look is back, and he can't quite recall having the desire like this to do so. So often in such short time, for the same person. Will does better off without people, but those caiman eyes breaking the surface of the water - Will's hand drops, immediately, when he realizes the reason his nicked and scarred knuckles have gone damp is because he's using them to trace up a path over one of those lashes impressed into flushed skin. Forgotten himself, and where he's at, lost in his own thoughts over the contrary mystery Hannibal presents.

Hannibal feels Will's eyes on his skin long before he feels his touch. He sits straight-backed beneath the examination. He has chosen to show himself to Will, and Will seems to be looking with appropriate appreciation. Hannibal drinks his wine and turns to the back of the sketchbook, finding a few blank pages that remain. He'll draw Will there, and when he remembers New Orleans, when he returns there in his memory, Will will be fixed there, too. He sets the book aside, open. He'll draw later, when Will is asleep or gone. When he has a sharp pencil and a clear head. Just now he can't say that he has either.

The touch on his back lights signal fires up his spine, but he doesn't flinch. He's taught himself not to flinch at anything. Hannibal holds his breath and lets Will trace the scar. Hannibal remembers how it was made, the sharp bite of the metal cord, neither the first nor the last lash. His blood down his shivering back had felt warm. "Soigneusement, cher," he whispers, just a breath between the present and the memory. Perhaps Will knows what he's doing, Hannibal muses, after the touch is gone and he's set a locked door in front of the memory. Perhaps he doesn't. EIther way, this boy is utterly, wonderfully dangerous. 

"Alright," Will breathes back, in English. The quiet feels like a held breath, even when his hand has dropped. "Je veux voir." A beat, where Will debates with himself, a back and forth tug between what he knows he should be doing - and what it is that he's wanting to do. It's almost reckless, when he elaborates without really elaborating at all, his tone an odd mix of wistful and aggravated, "Je veux te voir." 

His hands have seen most of the consequences that fishing in Louisiana bayous have to offer. His knuckles, too, but they're not half so rough - drawing up, deliberately now, no excuses, between one whip and the next. There's barely unmarred skin between them, and he wonders how well it can be felt, if at all. There's no resignation or discomfort here, in this touch. It's only when the thought occurs to him, sudden but not so surprising at all, if he would manage a gentler path with his mouth that he takes his hand back for good. His own back throbbing, in sympathy or from tension or both, in time with his heart.

"Alors," Hannibal murmurs, bending his back under Will's touch, "Alors, cher." Only Lady Murasaki has ever touched him this gently here. When Hannibal visits the Rue St. Denis to engage a man or a woman, he does not show them this, and if they see, they know better than to remark upon it. He holds himself still as Will resumes his tracery, as silently as frost on a window pane, cold while the wine warms his belly. Let Will see, he thinks. Let him know and beware. Let him stay, so that Hannibal can marvel at him. And if Will does a little marveling of his own, well, Hannibal could stand that.

He rises from the arm of the chair when Will seems to have finished his exploration and steps to face him, one hand extended as gracefully and carefully as if he were asking Will to dance instead of offering to help him out of his chair. Hannibal's back and shoulders are very straight again, and his face is carefully blank and calm.

Will's breath is shallow and quiet, his heart pounding so that he's surprised the other doesn't hear - or maybe he does. Him with his tracking nose, where his chin had almost been endearingly tipped like a dog catching a scent. His expression reminds Will of still waters, like the kind before a storm - where the bayou's animals have tucked themselves away in hollows and carved out spaces to keep safe and well.

He still takes his hand, when it's offered. He's slow to rise, but there's no way around the pain. A muscle in Will's jaw jumps when he straightens, but he's still watching Hannibal - too close, nearly sharing air. What a ridiculous image they must make right now. He doesn't apologize for the liberties he's just taken - still waters, brewing storms - just tips his chin to keep their gazes locked the way he tends to avoid to make up for their height differences. Hannibal's skin still warm, and Will wonders, meeting that steady, blank stare, how much damage that storm will bring to the shore.

Eyes locked on Will, Hannibal raises his other hand slowly enough that Will can track it and know that there's no need to move with it this time unless he wants to. He lays the back of it against Will's flushed cheek as gently as he offered it to the dog for a sniff. Hannibal's own nose is full of the bright warmth of Will's pain, perhaps dulled a bit but oh, so thoroughly affecting him. "Laisse-moi," he murmurs, though his eyes have drifted nearly shut. "Laisse-moi te voir, cher." But Hannibal makes no move to turn Will or open his shirt. These are fresh, angry marks that Hannibal is asking for a sight of, not old, smooth ones. They're tender in all kinds of ways. Let Will show him or not, as he likes. The sheer proximity of him is so much to feel that Hannibal could almost be content with that. 

Will's gaze flickers when Hannibal's opposite hand comes into view, tracking its progress through the air. He remembers the bright spot of ache that had bloomed under Hannibal's palm from before - and thinks now that he was right to move with it, instead of meeting it head on, if the shifting muscles of his arm are any indication. They're enough for Will to nearly indulge in watching instead, but he continues tracking that hand, until it's pressed against his face.

When his eyes flicker back to Hannibal's face, he's accompanied it by the faintest of head turns - tipping his face into the press of skin pressed against his own, near enough that he can feel the heat of his own breath wash back against his face. The scars marring his back would have bled for ages. Fair, he thinks, is fair. "Oui - yes." His voice rough, accent thick in both French and English. Will's relationship with the physical is complicated, at best, but he'll welcome the press of this hand. He's reminded of his thoughts before on vulnerability here, and has a moment to wonder if he's not reflecting back some of that still water at Hannibal; more going on beneath the surface than what the eye can see. When his opposite hand raises, it's to gingerly untuck the book he was given, and to set it aside with care on the table near them. Each movement pulls at his back, particularly when he releases Hannibal to reach for the fabric resting between his shoulder blades, and he can't place this feeling - electrified or anxious, the balance on that razors edge its own strange type of thrilling.

The scent of Will plumes into the air with the release of his shirt. It shakes Hannibal visibly. He hadn’t expected this tacit agreement, this acceptance of what he wants. The care Will takes with the book makes Hannibal’s stomach turn over with something like wonder, like the way he’d closed the kitchen door hours ago. That deliberate performance of care. Like the care that Hannibal hopes Will allows him to show. After a bath, though. Will’s scent is marred by sweat and muddy water. Hannibal craves purity.

He lets Will choose how he will turn, how best to display himself. It’s only right. He is the artist and the art, Hannibal only the grateful audience. But Will touched, and so Hannibal feels he can touch, just the scrape of a thumbnail, more curious than kind, against the swollen trail of that morning’s punishment. “So careless with his aim,” Hannibal murmurs. Some of the welts seem to lick lower, and from the way Will has been moving, Hannibal suspects that his thighs received worse than his back. “Show me the rest after the water has eased them,” he suggests, though Will no doubt intends to do as he pleases on that front.

Through the whooping, Will had taken care to grind his teeth together to keep sound from escaping. A small, pointless act of defiance. He'd known he'd deserved the punishment, there was no getting around that; but he wouldn't allow himself the weakness through its delivery. Now, Will's back straightens as if to move away from that press of nail against tender, bruised flesh, breath catching in his throat. Shoulders bowing. The touch trails fire and stays, burning, and Will throws a look over his shoulder, where he's standing facing the chair. There's no question if it was deliberate, or not.

"Not so careless." Clumsy, maybe, on the first couple of swings - but there was a groove his father fell into easily, when it was necessary. Legs above the knee were fair, and arms nearly never. He'd taken it across the front, once - and only once. He's still clutching the shirt when he half turns, meeting Hannibal's eye and cutting short his exploration. For now, he thinks, feeling the lingering, renewed burn across his skin, lighting up the nerves around it. For now. "Dire s'il vous plaît," Will says, steady and watchful. Lets the demand hang there between them, easy and waiting. Not a request.

Both of Hannibal’s brows rise, sardonic on his high forehead. “Please?” he asks, surprised into English by the audacity of this sturdy little minx. “If I thought you would listen to that, I would ask to undress you myself. To wash you myself. Do you want those things, please?” Giving orders that one knows will not be obeyed is pointless, Hannibal has always thought. Like making requests that will be denied out of hand. Just a waste of breath and everyone’s time. Hannibal makes calculated moves. But this is what Will wants, it seems. Hannibal will indulge him, but he’s curious

“Did he say please present yourself to be beaten? Or please go with this man whose money I’ve taken? ” Hannibal can’t imagine that Will’s father makes many polite requests of him. He intends to set himself in contrast to that clumsy cruelty, and to the other men Will’s father may have sent him away with. No doubt they simply took instead of asking. Hannibal will say please. His manners, like his cruelty, are far more refined. 

It's a swift reaction that Will's words gain him. It sparks his own temper, even as he'd half expected it - a nail across welts, an honest response, if not a kind one. Will smiles, lips tight over his teeth, in Hannibal's face. "He told me to get more money out of you if I could manage it," Will goes on to tell him through a tight-clenched smile, eyes sharpening under that tone, and the look that accompanies it. Ruffled feathered little peacock. Temper heightens his awareness of how close they're standing; how warm the room is, sweat stinging down his back. "In fact. I'll tell you where you can put it, if you'd like to know. Just say please."

He slides half a step closer. Not touching, but the warmth of their bodies is near stifling this close. Chin tipped to keep his gaze, closer than they'd been that morning, and feeling a breath away from cutting himself on that razor's edge. "You presume a lot," Will says - less with surprise than like he's making note of something. Hint of a bite in the tone, and a private thrill to do so. "And you mock what you should keep your mouth shut about."

Will’s face alight with righteous fury is glorious. Hannibal remembers it from that morning, but now Will is so close and half-bare. Hannibal has heard variations on this speech before, but never one he liked so much. “Maybe I’ll put it in his hand,” he spits. “Enough to drink himself stupid and take a wrong step in the dark.” The thought of Will’s father, drowned and bloated in the bayou pleases Hannibal. He wonders if it pleases Will. Hannibal would help him effect that, if he asked.

They’re so close that Hannibal could take a kiss if he wanted to. Could hold Will hard and ravage his mouth while he bit and fought. If he knew they were both ripe for it, he might try. Now, though, he worries that it might remind Will of men who gave him a far less pleasant time than Hannibal intends to. So instead he drops to his knees in the scant space between them and gives Will his best warm, beseeching eyes, brows still raised. “Please?” The gesture brings his nose so close to Will’s groin that Hannibal reels at the scent of him. Focusing in this position of much harder than he anticipated. Hannibal himself is harder beneath the loosened towel than he ever thought possible.

Will's breath catches at the way Hannibal spits the words out. Bitter, but like he's reveling in it, instead of being revolted. It lights Will up belly to throat quick enough to make him feel lightheaded, or perhaps that was more thanks to the wine - for a moment, he can see it. A stumbling step over uneven dirt and stone, and a tumble down into some ditch or overgrown patch. Near the water's edge. Off the dock, even. The bayou doesn't see fit to leave much behind of the people that it claims.

He blinks that image away to be greeted by this new one. Hannibal, knees on plush carpeted flooring in front of Will. He's been burned by lit coals cooler than the heat that ignites in response to the vision he makes - he aches in his jeans, an abrupt realization that he rocks with, for a moment. For the duration of it, he looks down at Hannibal with widened eyes. The only thing that destroys the image are those eyes. Too supplicating, ringing too false. When Will finally reaches out, his movements aren't slow, though they are deliberate; left palm cupping the underside of Hannibal's chin, thumb pressing against that sharp jawline. When he bends, he throbs. His back. His thighs. "Don't mock me -" it's uncomfortable, but he ducks his head. Thrilling at the indulgence of impulse by briefly pressing their cheeks together, before he tips his head. Pressing his teeth against skin, without biting - without pressure, not quite kiss. "- and don't fake sweetness at me."

These rules suit Hannibal just fine, although mocking Will had proved amusing before. Other amusements seem likely to present themselves now, though, so Hannibal closes his eyes for a long moment, and when he opens them his pupils are blown, and his adoration is genuine. Will's hand, Will's teeth, and the smell of him. That wry mouth. Hannibal wants to nose at him like a dog. He reaches up to cover Will's hand on his face and braces the other on Will's hip, because he's shaking and Will is hurting himself to make a gesture. This clever boy, Hannibal thinks, wild and lost in sensation. "Go, please," he murmurs, and maybe Will can't hear it, because managing volume is beyond Hannibal's ability right then. But the words vibrate through their joined hands, and Hannibal hopes he has been understood. To say he needs a moment would be a terrible understatement. He needs a year of moments to catalogue the things that Will inspires in him. The things that he hopes to inspire in Will. And if he doesn't get away from him, Hannibal thinks it very likely that he'll come right there on the floor in his fallen towel.

Will thinks about pushing his luck. Tipping his head further, pressing his teeth to that sharp mouth instead; reaching up with his free hand, maybe, and fisting it in that damp hair of his. He wonders what sort of sound Hannibal would make if he did, if any. If Will could inspire sound from him at all. Privately, thrillingly, he thinks he could. He thinks it would be good. He breathes out against Hannibal's cheek for another moment, but it's brief - he rises in the next, letting his hand slip from Hannibal's skin and grasp with dragging fingers. Let him feel the rough drag of calluses across that smooth skin.

Wordlessly, he turns, making the uncomfortable walk from sitting room to bathroom. It's only the bathroom door that he shuts, and after a moment of deliberation, doesn't lock. His heart is still pounding, echoing in the bruises across his back, his thighs - where he's hard, in his jeans. When Will strips, he's perfunctory about it, clothes carefully folded and piled across the counter top. The water is cold when he steps in, and he still hisses when it runs over his welts - the temperature, more than the sensation, doing more to wilt his arousal, enough that he can think past the thrill of Hannibal on his knees, towel loose on bird bone hips, and start to methodically scrub his skin clean.

Hannibal remains on his knees for a long moment after Will leaves, living in the sensation of Will’s hands. Will’s teeth. He’s still reeling when he gets to his feet and resolutely does not go to try the bathroom door. Instead he runs a hand through his hair, trying to remember other scents, other feelings. Finally, when he can, Hannibal slips into a loose pair of undyed linen trousers that sit low on his hips but conceal his erection more or less well. After a few deep, centering breaths, he turns out of his room and goes downstairs to find his aunt. 

She is reading in her sitting room this time. His uncle is still snoring in the next room. Hannibal doesn’t knock but he does bow and wait for her to look at him before he speaks. She takes in his wide-eyed state of half-dress and her eyes widen a little in turn. Otherwise she remains serene. “The ointment, please,” Hannibal reminds her, because he’s going to need it for Will. Possibly for himself. A dangerous thought. 

Murasaki inclines her head and stands. She takes a little jade jar from a trunk and extends it to Hannibal. “For Will Graham?” she asks, her head cocked a little. 

Hannibal nods, taking it. “Be careful with him,” she adds, but her tone is so even that Hannibal can’t tell which of them she is worried for. Perhaps both of them. He turns on his heel with a nod of thanks, not certain if he will take her advice.

Padding back upstairs, he returns to his bedroom. It is only afternoon, but he turns the bed down and fluffs the pillows. The sheets were clean yesterday, gray silk with a dark blue coverlet. They’ll suit Will’s coloring, which pleases Hannibal. The room is still and warm. Hannibal opens the window and then draws the shades. Anything to busy himself until Will emerges.

Will stays under the water only long enough to ensure that he's clean, that the water runs clear where it washes over him and swirls into the drain. Heat, he thinks, would be agony on the welts now, when he's near numbed them, biting into his wrist to ensure he muffles any errant noises that might try to escape. The skin is raw and slow to numb; he becomes impatient before the ache leaves completely, which is something, if he had to blame anyone for, he might blame on the man outside the room that Will was in now. There's a fire in his belly now, something like hunger not often indulged in. Certainly not like this. The thought of it has him breathing out heavier as he cranks the water off, dripping, for several moments, into the tub. Almost immediately, any benefit from the cold shower quickly starts to decline; his welts throbbing worse than before, or something close.

There are no towels, when he steps out. Tucked inside a decorative cabinet he dares to open are two stacks of hand and face towels, enough to dry him but not enough to cover - and Will desires, has a half formed thought of next time, next time his teeth are on Hannibal's skin, he'll be biting, he'll be searching out those few soft spots with hard, rough fingers - but he isn't half so bold, now, when he's had time to cool off, somewhat. He eyes the robe hung on the back of the door, sleek and expensive looking. Wonders if Hannibal's expression if he wore it out, offended or - like before, when he'd slipped back upright and caught a glimpse of it before he'd turned. He's tentative, wearing it - when he gathers the nerve - too long in the arm and the length, given their height differences, but soft. Soft and almost worse for it against his skin when he moves. It refuses to stay belted properly.

When he steps out, his clothes are collected in an arm with the sleeve carefully folded up and held away from his body, hair dripping down the back of his neck where he'd used his fingers to comb it back.

Hannibal has given in and is lounging in bed by the time Will emerges. He looks up from his book and then slides out to stand, doing his best not to look eager and searching. A facade feels harder now than it did before, but Hannibal is more or less calm. Sliding toward less at the slight of Will damp and draped in silk. “Better now?” he asks as lightly as he can, head cocked to the side. A habit learned from Murasaki over the course of the past few years.

Will smells cold, and there is no steam from the bathroom. That wouldn’t have been Hannibal’s choice. Hot water might have stung more at first, but it would have eased them in the end. No help for it now, though, and it isn’t worth an argument, not when Will is here and clutching his clothes. Hannibal sweeps the sheets back so that Will can lie down if he likes and holds out his hands for the bundle.

Will raises brows at the bed, and the lounging body on top of it. He's surprised he rises at all. His head dips in a nod, gaze tearing away from the bed that looks far too nice, far too plush and well off. "Yes. Thank you," it's only polite. There's something final about the act of passing off his clothes; it's one more problem to add to a situation that could go badly. It is, however silly, a sort of leverage. It isn't one that Will is unfamiliar with - though he's made good use of his own ability to be resourceful in the past. It doesn't mean it was pleasant.

He studies Hannibal, half dressed with fabric hanging low on angular hips. Not quite dripping, anymore, which is something of a shame. Will, finally, hands him his clothes. "There wasn't a towel." He gestures, sleeve swinging. Explaining, not apologizing for, the robe, though he hadn't objected when Will had stepped out. It gapes at the chest, which is - embarrassing, and Will, with the faintest twist of a scowl around his mouth, readjusts it with slow movements, to ease the pull of tight, aching skin. "What were you reading?"

Hannibal passes the book over, trading it for the bundle of Will's clothes instead of answering. It's a surgical text in French, more advanced than the classes Hannibal finished in the spring. He's determined to be prepared in the fall, mostly so that he can spend as little time as possible in lecture. Memorization comes easily to him, and the book was a fine distraction from imagining the stretch of muscles in Will's back as he washed. Focused now, Hannibal can respond with a genuinely apologetic smile to the inadequacies of his bathroom for his guest. "C'est ma faute, cher," he admits, reaching out to stroke a dripping curl. Even wrong-footed and uncertain, Will is lovely. Perhaps especially so. 

With a promise to return with all the towels Will could wish for and a suggestion that in his absence Will make himself comfortable in bed, Hannibal disappears down several flights of stairs to the laundry room he knows the Boudreaux keep in the cellar. The machine is a little unfamiliar, but he manages to get it going with the proper amount of soap. A passing housekeeper is easy enough to charm into promising that she will look after the clothes and see them delivered to Hannibal's room when they're dried. She giggles at him as he gathers up a stack of fluffy bath towels and trots upstairs. Hannibal only rolls his eyes once she's out of sight. Passing through the kitchen with his burden, he liberates a bowl of grapes, green and cool, and thus laden returns upstairs to Will. The exertion puts color in his cheeks and tousles his hair. He looks boyish when he bursts back into the bedroom, an afterimage of the child he never was. Mouth twitched up in an impish smile, he offers Will his choice of towels or refreshment, with a heartfelt promise to never, ever leave him so unsatisfied again. It's theater, but kindly meant. 

Will accepts the book with careful fingers - heavy, and pretty in its own way, though not like the one that had been tucked away into his shirt pocket. He rubs a thumb against the spine, briefly cracking it open to drag eyes down the paragraphs of flowing French. He takes care not to drip onto the pages. He follows Hannibal's French with a little difficulty, but this - he has to make leaps for some sentences, assumptions based on what is being discussed when he doesn't understand how to translate certain words, only a vague idea of what they could mean. It interests him, enough that he doesn't twist his head out of Hannibal's reach when he touches at his wet curls. Only looks up through his lashes, and watches Hannibal leave.

It's somewhat of a relief that he does. Will, briefly, debates staying standing - or returning to the earlier chair offered to him. But that seems odd, given his current state of undress, and the indignity of crawling into another's bed is lessened by the fact there is no one around to watch him struggle. The idea of leaning against the headboard, even with a pillow between his back and the hardwood, is not one he appreciates. Will settles instead just off center, the robe getting on his nerves now more than anything - the sleeves are shrugged off, cinched around his waist still to preserve some form of modesty. Knees bent, to spare the worst of the welts from pressure against the bed. He's still like that, spine curved and book resting on his slightly parted knees, when Hannibal returns. The energy in it makes Will's brows raise, and the cheeky words - despite his better judgement - make his mouth curve. "Très mignon," he comments, and again, despite his better judgement, it's amused. He looks, briefly, younger than he is. It's disarming, almost sweet. "Merci. Is this a habit of yours, running half-dressed through homes?" Will sets aside the book with care, ensuring it's out of danger of being dripped on when he reaches and plucks at one of the offered towels to finally run over his hair and damp neck.

“Only when I need the maid to look after my laundry,” Hannibal says conspiratorially. He even winks. Since Will has chosen his towel, he sets the rest aside. The bowl of grapes goes on the nightstand within easy reach, and Hannibal settles, legs crossed and back straight, at the foot of the bed facing Will. Hannibal watches his care with the book and smiles with genuine pleasure. Will is a careful boy, whatever else he may be, and so he has earned Hannibal’s care now. His smile is especially winsome. Hannibal decided to draw it later, though it might be far from typical. 

He produces the little jar of salve from his pocket and weighs it in his hand, watching Will now out of the corner of his eye. “You would be more comfortable, perhaps, lying on your belly. And I could make you more comfortable still, if you like.” He says the words lightly, a suggestion that Will could choose to follow or decline as he pleases, with no fear of reprisals. Whatever he decides, he will be small and bare and lovely in Hannibal’s bed, and Hannibal will count himself a lucky man. 

"Her poor heart." It's dry, delivered underneath the towel that Will was using to scrub over his hair. It's soft, and thick - he enjoys it more than the slick-soft material of the robe, and when it's become damp and his hair is not dripping in his face and down his neck anymore, he lets it rest across his shoulders. He's sure the towel has left it wild, so Will combs his fingers through his hair again. Damp fingers are wiped on the end of the towel draped around his neck, before his arms rest on his knees, hands dangling between. "Perhaps," he echoes, an agreement. Head cocked to study the image that Hannibal makes, almost endearing with that wink, legs crossed like a child on his extravagant bed. Will almost wants to ruffle his hair, next. To see what face he'd make at that.

"And how would you do that?" He's charming, when he wants to be, but Will knows the dangers of being charmed. He prefers knowing what's coming, before it comes - partially why, he thinks this man is so damnably irritating. Certainly not the entire reason why. Will will stay amused, instead, and privately, reluctantly, admiring. He eyes the bed, head inclining toward it when he glances back up. Polite, a little dry, like he isn't aware of how it sounds when he asks, "How would you like me?"

Hannibal knows better than to admit that he cares not at all for the maid’s heart, only that Will’s clothes are clean and pressed for him when he requires them. Instead, he kneels up on the bed, trousers slipping ever lower, suggestive little smile in place, and presents Will with the jar of ointment, first removing the lid to allow the fragrance of aloe and juniper to waft between them. “From my aunt,” Hannibal tells him, voice quiet and commiserating. “She treated my bruises with it when I first came to her.” He had tried to pick out the herbs and oils in it from their fragrance alone and found himself unable to do so. Murasaki had smiled as enigmatically as Hannibal does now. Her fingers on his back had been light and cool, leaving numb comfort in their wake. Hannibal had moaned into his pillows.

Now, he sits back on his heels and gestures to the space on the mattress in front of him. Let Will, tousled and wry, prostrate himself for Hannibal’s ministrations. If he does not discard the robe altogether, Hannibal will be pleased to slip it off his waist. He’s waited hours, they both have, Will in his discomfort and Hannibal in anticipation of the stripes laid across those sturdy thighs. Far from the first, Hannibal has no doubt.

Will's gaze dips to where Hannibal gestures, mouth pursed faintly as he looks back up to the jar that Hannibal holds. The smell of it is pleasant, strong at first and dissipating in the open air. He doesn't miss how his first question goes unanswered, a perfect example of just how aggravating he can be. Is. "If I asked," because this, at least, may save them some time and some annoyance, if Hannibal deems to answer him. "Would you tell me why you were hurt?" When he shifts, it's to rise to his knees, sinking deeply into the plush covers and the bed and losing any sort of height he may have potentially had on the other - and aching as each movement pulls at tight, swollen skin. The robe feels almost like the water had, cool and shifting over his skin as he knee walks closer, gaze steady and cool on Hannibal while he feels the knot of the tie loosen with the movement. Warm air against his skin, pausing deliberately for a beat, two, three, before he lowers himself to his belly on the bed. He can feel the robe slick against his waist, his thighs, draped and almost tickled the backs of his knees. 

Will folds his arms underneath his chin, propping it up. He can't see Hannibal well from this position, some of his bare side and hip, the fabric of his pants stretched over his thigh. It's a vulnerable position, one he's avoided putting himself. The knowledge of that swoops in the pit of his stomach. "Would you also thank her, for me," calm, only a hint of shuddering in his breath. Thinking of throwing back an elbow, if he needed to. Tossing back his head into that sharp, thin nose. "If I don't get the chance?"

Hannibal considers the first question while answering the second. He makes no move to arrange Will or position him as he likes. This is something Will needs to do of his own accord. Watching him offer himself is a joy, and Hannibal feasts his eyes. “I thanked her for myself, and I will for you, of course. She told me to take care with you.” And Hannibal intends to, if perhaps not quite in the way that Murasaki meant.

Without Will’s eyes on him, it is easier to think about how to present what happened to him. Hannibal fusses with the robe as he thinks, loosening the cord and the sleeves, teasing it away from Will’s body and setting it aside so he can survey the banquet before him, smooth curves of back and the swell of Will’s ass, pained and perfect. “I am sure there are orphanages run by kind men,” Hannibal hears himself saying, as though from very far away. “It was not this kind of orphanage I was sent to after my parents’ death.” 

He remembers the lash as he surveys the result of Will’s father’s heavy hand. The thick leather of his belt. “We were often hurt. I was smaller, then. Not...talkative. When I would not open my mouth, when I gave an impudent look, when I ate something another wanted. Then. That’s why.” Hannibal remembers, but he does not feel. That pain is an old companion. He’s tired of it. Before him, Will is new.

"Did she." It's not really a question, but it is amusing. Will wonders if she meant it, or if it was said in just that mocking way that Hannibal manages, making it sound kindly when he bothers to put forth the effort. What Hannibal said in response. Wonders, too, how much she knows - that, in itself, is an embarrassing thought. He doesn't help Hannibal in removing the robe from his body, hyper aware of the pressure of his fingers and the occasional brush of his knuckles - he allows him to do it, and listens, as he goes on.

It isn't a kind picture that's painted. Will's head twists, cheek pressed to his arm while he studies Hannibal from the best angle that he can manage - it isn't a good one, but it gives him opportunity to study him sitting tall over him. It's a simultaneously pleasing and aggravating view. There's injustice, there, but the world is full of it; he thinks of the patterns of scars over Hannibal's back, as his warms where he's exposed to the room at large. Of a smaller, quieter Hannibal. He imagines it happened often. He twists his head back to face the room. "And what did you do?" Will has long since learned to take his moments that taste of almost triumph from tiny rebellions. Mostly, they feel like pitiable attempts - but there's a certain satisfaction of denying cruelty what it wants. Quiet in the face of a beating. Bloodying searching fingers or otherwise reaching for a mouth.

There is no pity in Will’s question, and so Hannibal feels none of the cold rage that pity would have inspired. He watches Will watching him, watches when he turns away. He rests a hand on the small of Will’s back. Lightly, not holding him down, and touching no welts. The contact grounds Hannibal as he answers. “I remembered my parents. My sister. I fought, sometimes, when I could not stand to keep still. I had revenge in quiet ways, when possible.” Accidents had happened to some of the worst bullies. The ones who came for the boys younger than Hannibal. But too many accidents raised questions, so they had to be chosen carefully. And having to choose, weighing one torment against the other, that weighs on Hannibal still.

“I can’t stay there very long, now,” he says decisively, closing that door in his mind and locking it resolutely. He opens the ointment and lets the scent keep him here in this bed, with this boy. “You understand?” Cool fingers stroke Will’s side, navigating carefully. “I’ll get lost.”

Unexpectedly, Will is pleased to hear it. Something swelling almost like pride, which is dangerous all on its own. Hannibal's words could all be a lie, but he doesn't suspect they are - he suspects, if anything, that there are things he isn't saying. Omissions that he thinks about asking after, and after a beat of consideration, doesn't. "Good." Is the only thing he says in response. He wonders if they tasted like victories to him, these quiet acts of revenge, or if they feel like disappointments for all the opportunities that weren't or couldn't be taken. Both, perhaps, which is its own sort of cruelty.

"Oui." It isn't a topic that Will is unfamiliar with. The curve of his mouth twists grimly. He understands. "Yes. I do." Goosebumps rise where Hannibal's fingers trail, almost as cruel as the scrape of his nail had been earlier, in a different way. Will wonders, briefly, if Hannibal can feel himself slipping in this moment - and, just as unexpected, finds he doesn't want him to be. When Will arches, it's with a sigh, too deep not to feel it ache at the points of where his father's belt had struck the beginning curve of his ribs, and pressing his skin into Hannibal's hand. "Touch me." 

Grateful, silent, Hannibal dips a finger into the salve and deliberates a moment. "This one was first," he murmurs. It licks up Will's shoulder, more glancing than the rest. Hannibal strokes salve over it. And then He lets himself look, really look, at the swollen mess that lies just beneath and around Will's ass. "Did he lose his temper?" Two fingers now, spreading the salve thickly, tucking it between Will's thighs, leaving no abused skin unanointed. As he works, keeping the pressure as light as he can, Hannibal tries to imagine the scene. Fresher bruises would have been more indicative, but he can extrapolate a little. "Nothing in his way to protect you," he muses, rubbing up over Will's back. Hannibal doesn't forget to pay gentle attention to Will's temple, where his slap left a faint mark. 

The spot on Will's ribs gives Hannibal pause. He wishes badly for what an X-ray might reveal. The sigh had pained Will, that was obvious. Hannibal places his hand there and feels as gently as he can, head tilted. Will is skinny, but not that skinny. Hannibal makes a note to keep an eye on the spot, but says nothing. No doubt Will can tell a broken rib when he has one. "This is the usual result?" he asks. It's the voice he uses for patients, warm and professional, because if Hannibal asked what he wanted to, in the way he wanted to, he's certain it would be very badly received. 

Will doesn't confirm it, when Hannibal's fingers are moving over the strip across his shoulder. He doesn't need to. His breath shivers when cool salve is swept across his skin. "I cost us food in our mouths and money for our bills." Spoken with quiet acceptance, and lingering resignation. Simple. His knees spread across soft bedding to allow for Hannibal's hand - the relief is almost instantaneous, and the steadiness of his words quickly falls into something shakier, teeth clicking together to bite back the groan. It's trapped in his throat instead, head dropping to drop his face into the fold of his arms. Breathing through the swell of it, the wave that crests from sting and deep ache into blessed, cool relief. It was always harder to defend against relief than pain. "Take a châtiment once right or take it again." The words are muffled, hidden into bedding and his arms. Small victories seem smaller, when it's voiced like that.

The gentleness in the gesture surprises him. He's surprised more by the cool relief at his temple. It doesn't feel like an apology; Will would likely slap his hand away, if it did. "There was work to be done, still." His father had been heavy handed, but that was true for most things. This was not what Will would call usual result - as amused as he was by the shift in Hannibal's tone. "So no." 

"Take it right," Hannibal murmurs just after Will says the words. He's mesmerized by the thought of the tableau even as Will softens under him. The acrid scent of pain lessons, replaced with the fragrance of relief. Hannibal breathes deep. There is an uncomfortable guilt growing in him, and he makes it a point never to feel guilty about anything. He remembers catfish blood and bills on the floor. He cost Will this. It is right, therefore, that he should be the one to ease it. Hannibal keeps this to himself and finds his fingers carding through Will's hair, ordering the unruly, damp curls. "May I ask " Hannibal stops and steadies his voice. "May I ask what is usual?" Perhaps he has overstepped gravely, but something in him needs to know. He is assembling a portrait of Will Graham, an idea of the truth of him, both for the pleasure of it and so he can decide and predict things about Will. He wants Will to indulge him with the truth.

Will hums, his eyes barely slits as he feels Hannibal's hands move over him. Over his hair. Tension is unwinding from him, slow and sure, relaxing further into the plush comfort of the bed. He knows better than to sleep in strangers' beds - knows better than to sleep in his own bed, really, when there are other options available. Foolishly, Will wonders what it would be like to fall asleep in a bed like this. Easy, he thinks. It would be easy. Dangerous. 

He thinks about not answering. What business is it of his? This is Will's life, the only one he can lead - for now. What would Hannibal do with that information? Carry it with him, and why? Or worse - cluck his tongue, dismissive and pitying? In fact, Will doesn't answer, for several long and drawn out moments. Long enough that the topic could be considered at rest, and to be moved on from. Only then does his voice break the quiet, a murmur kept deliberately steady and pressed into bed clothes and doing nothing to help be heard, "Usually, I don't walk after." Thoughts turned to My parents, my sister and I'll get lost. Omissions are one thing, but a lie is something else entirely, so Will amends, "Can't."

It is not the answer that Hannibal has been dreading, but it is hardly less terrible. Hannibal rubs at the base of Will’s skull as he murmurs, but touches him nowhere else after that. Instead he pushed the pillows away and aligns his body with Will’s, parallel but not quite touching. Hannibal lies on his back and looks at the embossed patterns on the ceiling. He thinks about telling Will that he should’ve groveled. Taken the bills from the floor and pleased his father. But then Will would not be here now to be soothed. And Hannibal knows that, in Will’s place, he would never have groveled. Will is not to blame for this. Hannibal is, so he will be truthful.“You will understand me if I tell you two things. First, that I would kill him for you, so that he would never touch you again. Second, that I would have watched him do it. I wish I had, for the beauty of seeing you hurt.” 

Hannibal does not know how to synthesize these for Will. For himself he sees no need. He can believe both, feel both. Accept both as true. But he knows that this is far from usual. Perhaps he will lose Will now, he thinks. 

Will's breath halts in his throat. Thinking of reveling in bitter, bitten out words and thoughts of drunken missteps in the dark, as the body next to his settles and radiates heat out all along his side. There's quiet, after Hannibal's words, where Will's heart thumps hard and fast against the inside of his ribcage, and thick, cool salve settles into his skin. That, he thinks, is probably the most honest thing he has heard out of Hannibal's mouth. 

Will pushes himself up to his elbows, then, and turns his head to look at this mystery of a man beside him. Feels the same sharp-edged thrill of a razors edge as he breathes in aloe and juniper, too-warm air and feels light headed. "Do you wish you had," Will hears himself ask, and knows, abruptly, which way he'll be tipping. "Or do you wish you'd been the one raising the belt?" Will doesn't wait for an answer. Instead, he falls, leaning over the scant few inches or so between them to crush his mouth against Hannibal's - to give into the desire to bite. 

Hannibal is thinking of which of his clothes might best fit Will and how to offer them to him while he’s angry, as he’s likely to be quite soon. He has a pair of canvas trousers, brown and a little tight. They might suit Will. 

The question catches him by surprise as few things do. He opens his mouth to offer some prevarication and finds it full of Will’s tongue. Hannibal stifled an undignified, pleased noise, and then the pain of teeth on his lip lights up and rolls down his spine. He surges up into Will, rolling them over together, so that now Hannibal is leaning over him. He presses his hands hard into Will’s shoulders and looks into his eyes, blood filling his mouth, staining. “Oh, cher.” The words are pure adoration. “I would be far more precise.”

The tone ignites him, blooms heat in his gut even as Will arches instinctively to keep his back from pressing into the bedding, staining it - feeling it light up, again, from the pressure, dulled considerably - before he goes limp. A soft line from throat to belly, fingers pressing into the bed. His mouth isn't soft at all, curved - too many teeth, some stained red from the dig into soft, tempting mouth. Something pleased, taunting. "Very confident of that." And perhaps he has a right to be. It's one thing among many that Will doesn't know for certain about him - but that's fine, for the moment. Will is the one here now in his bed, ready and willing and near fitful to press hard, unsteady fingers into him to pull apart and see - and, thrillingly, terrifyingly, allow him to look back. "You say it as if I wouldn't hurt you back." He braces his feet, bucks his hips up to toss him to his right with the little leverage the plush bed - now annoying, frustrating - offers him. Left palm coming to connect not quite center with Hannibal's right inner elbow.

Of course Will’s a scrapper, a brawler, Hannibal thinks. Wild and ready, a clear-sighted opportunist. Hannibal prefers to be decisive, quick, and to avoid more exchanges than necessary. “Will you?” he gasps, privately exhilarated, and then Will proves it. Hannibal’s lip is swelling rapidly, another proof. Wide-eyed with barely concealed delight, Hannibal feels pain bloom in his elbow. He lies beneath Will and exults.

Too many things to feel dull Hannibal’s focus, though, and Will is wild. Hannibal catches his hands and twines their fingers together. “I want it,” he breathes, another truth. “But...soigneusement. Please, cher.” Will has shown he could be careful with Hannibal’s body once before. Perhaps he will choose to be again. Hannibal’s pain has to wait upon his pleasure.

Will's skin feels lit up; an exposed nerve, so much sensation it hurts. He lays pressed between Hannibal's thighs, once he's rolling them, chest rising and falling quickly as he stares down at Hannibal. Startlingly lovely beneath him, with the pressure of their fingers tangled together. It's an unexpected move, when Will had half expected him to strike out. There's the rush in his ears, blood racing - for a moment, he only watches him. Not quite suspicious, but waiting. And then Will pins Hannibal's hands to the bed, careful pressure and breathing deep to bow his back over him. Dipping his head to Hannibal's. Eyes open, even if they're too close for his eyesight to focus properly, while he gently touches his mouth to the swelling shape of Hannibal's own. Gentle, gentle. "Beau," Will murmurs, accent drawling. Heart racing, still, but - an agreement. "Yes - as you'd like. Soigneusement."

Hannibal lies still, but not limp, where Will holds him, knowing this is a test. That doesn’t keep wariness from his eyes, though. Will’s teeth were made to rip. Hannibal loves them. He swallows thickly. There’s less blood now. His eyes drift closed as he tastes it, and then he feels Will bend to taste it too. Hannibal smiles at the words and winces as the bite opens again. “I’ll show you,” he says, enunciating carefully. He moves Will’s hand to his jaw, where Will could press a thumb up and make Hannibal cry out. He shows him the twice-broken humerus, where pressure is unbearable for more than a few seconds. And of course Will could find a hundred other places on his body that would hurt, a thousand other ways to pull and pinch and strike. Hannibal finds that a leveler field feels better to play on. He presses a thumb slowly into the welt on Will’s shoulder, being careful himself.

Will blinks down at him, calculating gaze following where Hannibal guides his hand. Fingertips stroking, as he commits to memory the places that he's shown - here, and here, and here. Wonderful, hidden little soft spots. Shoulders twitch under the pressure, the slow to come, deep throb from Hannibal's thumb - he reaches up, fingers curling around Hannibal's hand, and has him press flush his hand against his ribs, opposite of where his father's belt had landed. Too many injuries, where it aches with every breath when it's cold - and a sharp jab will leave him gasping for air. His hip, twice dislocated with a tender area just below it that harsh enough pressure is enough to buckle that knee. All of the places that aren't so swollen and bruised and obvious. Too many soft, tender areas shared and suddenly on display. It feels like a dangerous sort of game they're playing, cataloging these points of weaknesses, Will's callused fingers sweeping over each area with a ghost of pressure behind it. Watching Hannibal as he moves, gaze shifting over his expression as he tests with deceptively tender touches. 

“All him?” Hannibal wonders aloud, wishing again for an X-ray. A catalogue of them that he would cherish, a map to the internal landscape of Will’s body. The shifting movement and Will above him have Hannibal’s trousers in disarray. He wiggles out of them and drops them off the side of the bed, leaving them both bare and equal. “Or do men often pay him money as I did?” he asks, voice still wondering and level. Hannibal suspects that the exchange might have happened before, given that he secured Will’s company with relative ease and no questions asked. Given that Graham instructed Will to secure more of Hannibal’s money. But perhaps it was only opportunity and greed that allowed Will to be here, not a pattern of painful indignities. Rage rises in Hannibal at the thought of others touching. Hurting. He is slowly coming to the sure knowledge that Will is his and his alone. A private knowledge, one that Will would surely balk at. Hannibal cherishes it. 

"Are these all from that place?" Will questions back, his eyebrow raising toward his hairline. Hannibal is warm underneath him, and beyond the first blood pounding rush of adrenaline, Will is content to lay against him and lets their bodies gather sweat where they meet. He's used to worse heat than this, with twice as much discomfort - he'll feel bad later for whoever it falls to, to clean the bedding. His free hand is pressed to Hannibal's sternum, fingers trailing just under the curve of his collarbones, so close to the vulnerable stretch of skin over his throat, and so tempted to touch. Light enough pressure over weak points that it feels - dangerous for both of them, on either side. "He's not as cruel as he could be. I'm luckier than most."

"The arm broke for the first time just before," he says, an easy answer. "The rest, yes." Will's retort is fair, and the hand on his chest clever and welcome. Hannibal shifts a little, bends one knee up for the leverage it will afford him if he needs it. Plants his foot firmly on the mattress, but makes no move to lever Will off of him, yet, only brings his fingers up to nest in Will's hair

Hannibal does not argue with Will's assessment of his father's methods, though having heard his don't and then can't, Hannibal is inclined to believe that there is cruelty aplenty from his father's hand, if not from others. He does not press further on the issue of Graham's role as procurer. It is not necessary that he know in order to be able to manage the situation. "Luckier still now that you have a patron willing to pay for the privilege of having you in a pristine condition." A portion of Hannibal's allowance, issued each month by his uncle from the inheritance left to him, will be a small price to pay to ensure Will bears only precise marks from now on, and that he is strong enough to mark Hannibal in kind.

Will's head cocks, gaze sharpening with Hannibal's movements under him. Nothing comes of it - or, nothing comes of it just yet - but his breath had caught, waiting. Expectant. When nothing happens, gradually, tense muscles unwind enough that Will can enjoy the additional press of skin. The fingers in his hair is another allowance that he makes, though it's a risky one. He thinks, privately, that he likes the way Hannibal's fingers mold to the curve of his skull.

"I do, do I?" Will's eyes are still sharp, but he barks out a laugh at Hannibal's words. Abrupt but quiet - rough, like it's surprised out of him. His hand doesn't pause or falter as he slides it up further still, over the sharp shapes of bone underneath soft skin to drag his fingers along the length of Hannibal's neck. There's no pressure here, either, but the very fact of Will rubbing his thumb in a gentle arc just off center of his throat shifts the air. Just a little. "Is that what you are? Kindly patron to watch over me?"

The press of strong, rough fingers on his throat mean that no words are easy now. Hannibal has to swallow hard several times to manage any. "Not kindly, no." The word is far too banal for what Hannibal is. What he is growing certain that Will is. "But careful. Interested. How would he take the offer?" And that is as much as Hannibal can manage, though he tells himself that it was all he wanted to say. He would keep Will well and pay careful attention to how he used his freedom and health. The thought appeals to Hannibal deeply, leaving him to calculate how to cause it to appeal to Will. Or at least to Will's father. Though patronage without permission might be difficult to navigate, Hannibal thinks. Will would object. Hannibal wonders if his objection would be interesting. He has a great deal of faith in his powers of persuasion, though. He doubts Will is a masochist. 

The curve of Will's mouth isn't kind; it's humoring, almost, dry as his gaze shifts between Hannibal's expression and where his hand is curved delicately over the stretch of his throat. He really is beautiful, aggravating little peacock that he is. Will can feel the movement of his throat under his palm, and breathes slowly out at it. Enjoying it, deeply, as his thumb sweeps over the center of his throat and back to the side. Constant, slow movement. "Well, probably. At first." He knows his father and his temper, worse still when drink has aggravated him and he forgets the consequences his actions will bring. Will continues to sweep his thumb over Hannibal's skin, considering, dipping his head and gently touching his mouth to that spot Hannibal had shown him along his jaw. His hand doesn't shift from its position. "You're asking the wrong question." Now, his thumb stills; pressed with the lightest of pressure over the center of Hannibal's throat, eyes lit up and sharp on his face. For paying you like a whore, Will remembers, feeling the air shift and grow heavy, almost charged, when he stills overtop Hannibal, staring down at him. "You should be asking how I'll take the offer."

"I think I have your answer," Hannibal says, trying for nonchalance and achieving only hoarse acquiescence. A minor setback, he tells himself. A challenge, one to relish, because Will is a worthy opponent.This plan requires Will's cooperation, he's decided. Will's management of his father when Hannibal is absent. So he must secure it, Hannibal decides. He removes his hands slowly from Will's hair and lies back flat on the mattress, a picture of supplication. He gazes up at Will, the cold fire of his eyes and the set of his mouth. He can spare a breath or two for Will's hands. As many as Will cares to take from him. "As you like, cher," He adds, trying for an indulgent tone. "Only know what your company is worth to me. What your comfort is worth."

"You presume a lot," Will reminds him, as gentle as his mouth had been. As his hand is, settled still over his throat. He makes a pretty picture, laid out neat and humble across his bedding, hair a little ridiculous from where it's drying wild. Will wants to bite, again. Retrace his steps over all of Hannibal's soft spots with harder fingers. He remembers Hannibal speaking of getting lost, and then - yes, Will knew precisely what he'd meant. Where he's still looking down at him, Will thinks he knows precisely what he'd meant.

"Worth a few bills to you, for a break from boredom, for a while." He isn't offended about it, right now. He'd still have preferred to stuff those bills down his throat than accept them, but in this moment, Will doesn't taste the same combination of fury-shame that nearly choked him before. Just heat, and the lingering taste of old pennies. He's fallen off that razors edge, and making the most of it. "And my comfort is only worth as much entertainment as you get. Oui?" The smallest increase in pressure, where Will's thumb rests over Hannibal's throat. "I'm not the day's catch, waiting in your sink. My scraps aren't going to be thrown into the garbage after dinner."

"Scraps?" Hannibal grates out wonderingly. He's breathing very carefully now, shallow and slow. Breathing still because Will is allowing it. "As though there would be anything left, cher." He gives Will a wink that he hopes will lighten the air between them, since he's determined to place the arrangement Hannibal suggested in the worst possible light. "You are entertaining whether you're comfortable or not," he reminds Will. He is entertaining whether or not Hannibal is comfortable, which is why Hannibal is indulging the suggestion of strangulation. If Will were behind him, he would be fighting tooth and nail, his mind more than willing to substitute an old tormenter. Now, in Hannibal's sight, he is interesting. The pressure of his hand is interesting, for a little while. Too long, though, and Hannibal is uncertain of his response. He dislikes uncertainty. Swallowing hard, painfully, he tries to slip a hand beneath Will's to gain himself a little relief.

Will's expression remains unmoved, gaze heavy lidded as he studies Hannibal beneath him. He wonders if he's deliberately trying to antagonize him into choking him, and wouldn't be surprised, he thinks, if he were. "I wonder what your comfort is worth," Will murmurs, a quiet caress while his hand, for a moment, remains unmoving despite Hannibal's attempts. For just a heartbeat, his fingers curl - and then relax, letting Hannibal's hand ease under his palm and fingers. Like his robe, slipping over his skin with just the lightest of touches. 

It's a breath let out, muscles unclenched. The tension around them eases, while Will settles himself more comfortably against Hannibal, the weight of his body resting against him rather than mostly hovering over - chin to his sternum, taking his place like it was owed to him. Later, when he's dressed and slipped out of the Boudreaux's home, Will will tuck these memories down tight and try not to remember too clearly the feeling of Hannibal's throat moving under his. For now, he breathes. In and out, nice and slow. "You're as sharp as a panfish," Will tells him bluntly.

Hannibal does not know what a panfish is, but he's been told similar things before by lovers blunter than Will. He brings his arms up to hold Will and make a better pillow of his chest, placing his hands carefully to avoid the welts. "If I could offer you decolletage, I would, cher," Hannibal murmurs. Beneath him, Hannibal's cock is interested but less than pressing. Hannibal's mind is pressingly interested by Will in general, part of which might be the idea of sex with him. Not an overly large part, though.

They breathe together for a moment, Hannibal resolutely not gasping to try and fill underserved lungs, before he says, musing, "I have paid before, often. It seemed best to have professional tutors." He'd come of age in Paris and shortly after marched down to the Rue St Denis and funded a rigorous, pleasant education for himself in the arts of love. He'd found it only slightly more difficult than his education in medicine. "I can provide references, if you like."

"It's more your hips," Will informs him dryly, twisting his own in a slight shift that provides his abdomen with a sharp poke from one. He's sharp angles and not-quite comfortable, which suits Will fine, in this moment. Occasionally, it's nice to be reminded of where one was. "Like fish spines." His left hand trails, over the soft skin of Hannibal's waist to thumb pointedly at one of his hips, half certain when he draws his hand away that he'll be bleeding. Their skin slides, when Will shifts, sweat gathered between them. He enjoys it, and thinks he'd enjoy it more, if it weren't for the heat.

He isn't surprised by the not-so-much reveal. If anything, he's a little amused by the term 'professional tutors'. "Your bragging is étrange," he comments. His interest hasn't waned, as reluctant as Will had been to admit it at first. Aroused and simmering. He's still reluctant to admit it, even if it's fairly obvious, given their arrangement now. "I think I'd like them from those you don't want me to talk to."

Hannibal feels mildly affronted that Will took truth-telling for braggadocio. "There are none of those," he says primly, allowing Will's attention to his hips to continue. He would allow a few bruises to decorate them, but will not ask. "I studied. I learned well." Hannibal will happily provide him with a demonstration if asked, but again, will not offer. His fingers caress Will's side, skimming over welts at times, pressing into them others. It feels to Hannibal as though the salve has caused the swelling to subside. "You are not a fish," he decides, going back down Will's sides and up over the plush curves of his ass. "Something warmer." He searches for the name of the animals in English, and fails to find anything suitable. "Of family Mustelidae," he finishes finally. 

The tone is sweet, all rich boy proper, and Will smiles at it, his thumb pressing to the sharpest point of Hannibal's hip. Muscles shift underneath his ever moving hands, an odd mix of too much at some points, not enough at others. He finds himself arching once into the press of Hannibal's hands over a well soothed welt, aching, a little, for the pressure. Will isn't much one to tease, doesn't have the means or the temperament for it - usually sharper, more taunting, but this. This feels like a tease. It's nice. "You're sure? I'll take your references, darlin', and I'll go through them carefully." Louisiana accent growing thicker over the endearment.

He has to cast his mind back for the word, to think if he knows it. There's a memory, a hot and humid school room with a dozen other underfed children and a single fan on a desk near windows that couldn't open. Before he'd been pulled to work on the docks. Will sends him a look when it clicks and settles. "How exactly do you figure that?"

Will's accent might be the most charming one Hannibal has ever heard, but he would never admit it. Will's fingers seem to reach inside him, plucking at his bones through his skin until Hannibal feels revealed in a way that none of his tutors prepared him for. And Will is responsive, moving with Hannibal's touch like strings being plucked. He turns the back of his hands toward Will's skin and strokes with his nails this time, dragging them in slow figures over Will's side. 

The association seems to rankle Will, though Hannibal is pleased that he understands the comparison in question. "Sharp teeth," he explains patiently, smiling with a swollen lip. "Sleek fur." He bends his head a little to kiss Will's curls. "Clever and quick and inquisitive." There is so much pride in Hannibal's voice at the perfection of Will. The careful, predatory instinct of him. This fascinating boy. 

That - the press of nails, the unrelenting pressure-scrape of it. Will shudders immediately, fingers clenching reflexively over Hannibal's hip, his thumb slipping over sweat slick skin into the hollow it creates. They're pressed too closely together for him to pretend it's anything other than what it was, gaze going dark where he's still looking at Hannibal. He settles heavier against him, lashes dipping briefly to eye the stretch of skin across his chest directly in front of Will's mouth.

To his mortification, something like heat climbs up his throat in response. Not so much to the words - words are fanciful, pretty when people want them to be - but the tone. There are worlds in a tone. "Has anyone ever told you that you're ridiculous?" Will is placid under the attention, but the question is just sharp enough to try for a distraction from the way he feels the flush settle into his skin. The room is warm; it can easily be blamed. "I said you were as sharp, not that you were." No, not this one, with his caiman eyes.

"You don't find me ridiculous," Hannibal says with calm certainty. Will's blush and his dark eyes tell him that. His shudder telegraphs it clearly. And he seems to be trying to melt into Hannibal's skin. No, not ridiculous. "I wouldn't presume to know how you do find me, cher." Hannibal presses the heels of his hands into Will's shoulder, hard, and curls his nails in to let him feel them. As sharp as the knife in his boot. As sharp as Will's wit. Yes, Hannibal is as sharp. 

He thinks of lifting Will up, helping him sink down by inches onto his cock. Would he struggle to receive it, Hannibal wonders. Would his face draw in and his belly clench? Or would he ride easily, undulating while Hannibal's hands rested lightly on his slim hips. Not a tableau to try and arrange so early in this dance, Hannibal thinks, as he holds Will down against him. He will be doubly marked in the morning.

His fingers around Hannibal's hips tighten sharply, while his breath shudders out of him - hint of tone on the end, turning it from sharp and unsteady exhale into something else. Hips rocking, shoulders arching into the pressure, this time, rather than away - it's as much conceding the point as if Will had opened his mouth and said it. "Aggravating," Will breathes at him, when his lungs are working properly again the way they're supposed to. Truth. His head dips, nose skimming sweat slicked, warm skin, warmed further by Will's quick breaths. Words growing quiet and drawling as he talks, unclenches his fingers from where they'd locked around Hannibal's hips, pressing his thumbs up to the soft, vulnerable underbelly of him. Distracted by it, the sting and throb in his shoulders, and too honest, with what he sees; what he's seen. "Dangerous. Panfish prick, but that's all. You've got some dangers of the bayou in you." Not with this one, Will thinks.

Hannibal smiles with the pleasure of being truly seen. He called Will a danger of his home, and now Will has recognized in him some of the danger of this place. He pants with the pain of hard thumbs in soft flesh. His lip has opened again and begun to bleed sluggishly, filling his mouth with the flavor of life. He lets out a sharp, bitten-off moan when the pressure digs too deeply for too long, and his body curls up around Will in a vain attempt to protect himself from it. I showed him this, Hannibal thinks, not that Will isn't clever enough to find it without help.

He straightens himself out with difficulty, unable to keep from panting now. His cock is very interested now, too. Hannibal likes hearing about himself, and he likes being cleverly, carefully hurt. And Will, he might like Will a little, here and there. He's willing to beg now, the words a struggle to form clearly. Hannibal swallows hard, "Your teeth, again. Please."

That, Will thinks, is lovely. No false sweetness from fluttering lashes or mocking tone, just a simple drop of the word into his sentence. Will rewards him with his request without taunting him for it, body dragging against Hannibal's when he uses his knees to push himself up and catch that sharp line of his jaw with his teeth. Enough to bruise, but not to break skin this time; palms splayed across his belly, fingertips brushing the bottom of his ribcage. Feeling the bumps of bone and the way they press up into his fingers when Hannibal breathes. If he wants Will's teeth, he'll have to come to terms with the fact Will is going to place them where he likes, if he's not going to offer ideas.

His lazy half hard state is gone - his blood is up again, pain a bright and wonderful counterpoint to the pleasure of putting his mouth on Hannibal, his hands doing what he'd itched to do before and retracing the path they'd taken over Hannibal's body. "Beau," Will sighs when he lets go of Hannibal's jaw, waits only long enough for the ache to settle, before he noses at the imprint of his teeth.

It isn't where Hannibal would have chosen. The pain is dark and sharp, and there will be no hiding the mark in the morning. His fingers tangle in the ends of Will's hair and pull hard, but Will seems determined to bite until he's finished and then rub the pain in. Hannibal is angry and trembling and there is a low throbbing in his belly. "I will die if you do that here," he says, when he can speak, and the words might be French or English, he isn't sure. He's still reeling when he presses Will's fingers into the join of neck and shoulder to show him where to set his teeth. "But only a little death." Hannibal leaves their hands wrapped together, craving an anchor to hold on to when Will gives in to who he is. He will not be able to resist it, Hannibal thinks.

Will bares his teeth in a smile into Hannibal's skin, feeling the sharp sting across his scalp where Hannibal has pulled hard. His hips rock, wounds and cock throbbing in time with his hammering heart as he rubs across the spot that Hannibal has brought his hand to. Light, so light. Gentle. He has to work to twist his hand around in Hannibal's grip, to hold as tightly as he is in return. He thinks about biting somewhere else - his collar, maybe, or the length of his throat - and doesn't that thought spark through him like hot coals - but in the end, the temptation to hear him, to see the result of Will's teeth in his skin -

Will turns his head, twisting his and Hannibal's joined hands out of the way. Murmurs, "Say please." Because the thought makes him smile, again - not kind - before he bites into the spot that Hannibal has indicated, feeling the press and give of muscle under his teeth and tongue.

Please, as if Hannibal had the ability to do any more than moan and fight and come under Will’s teeth. Will could rend him, flay him. This is just a taste of his power. He holds Hannibal’s hand so tightly that their finger creak together. Hannibal ruts up against his thigh, once, twice. The friction is hardly necessary. Will started something and now he’s finishing it. Hannibal’s other hand is in his hair so hard he imagines it parting in his grip. Deep, undulating waves are coursing through him, inspired by the boy above him. His teeth, his hands, his clever eyes. There are tears in Hannibal’s eyes, and a crack in his voice when he can gather himself enough to say, “Thank you?” It’s a bit late for please, after all.

Will keeps his spot on top of Hannibal with braced thighs and gripping hands, one tangled in his and the other gripping him around his waist - teeth in his skin, breath harsh and fast through his nose, even when he pulls back and watches the last handful of moments of his pleasure, wide eyed and lips parted. Beautiful, dangerous thing, undone underneath him. Will wants to bite him again, over that fresh marked bruise, and watch it happen again. 

He's confused only for a moment, and then Will laughs - rough and a little wild, his thumb rubbing into the side of Hannibal's hand, where he's still gripping it. Head dropping to press his forehead against the curve of his shoulder, feeling something like triumphant - aroused, horribly, and pleased. "Darlin'," that same pleasure and praise in his tone. "You're welcome."

The aftershocks leave Hannibal shivering and limp for longer than he expected. He gazes up at Will with hooded eyes while his laugh echoes through Hannibal, reverberating all the way out to their clasped handed. Hannibal’s shoulder is singing with pain. He groans wordlessly and tries to sit up when he can, shaky as a foal, to go fetch a cloth to clean the mess he made of his own belly and Will’s thighs. Will’s body boxes him in.

Flopping back to the mattress as gracefully as he can, Hannibal can only gaze upward, reaching with his free hand to stroke Will’s jaw as he smiles up at him with a mouth that’s still swollen and a little bloody.

Will is still over him, breathing shallow and quick as he lifts his head and keeps Hannibal where he'd like him, for the moment. Fingers on his skin make him shudder, a light thing down his spine while he murmurs, accent thick and his voice rough with want and quietly amused, "There we are." Their hands are still clasped. Will thinks, privately, with no intention to ever admit it, it's a little sweet. Endearing. Combined with his bloody smile, Will is, admittedly, a little endeared.

Will thinks he'd like to get off, which is - a surprise, of sorts, but also not the point, he thinks. No, now, Will breathes until his blood has done something close to settling - and then he raises a hand, gently thumbing at the edge of Hannibal's swollen mouth before he takes his chin and carefully turns his head to study the path of bruises from his teeth on his skin. "It's very nice to bite you," Will notes, gaze drawn the swollen point of neck and shoulder. The imprint of his teeth are very clear.

Hannibal agrees breathlessly with a sort of grunt and as much of a Gallic shrug as he can manage while boneless and flat on his back. He drops his hand from Will's jaw to his own chest, the logical next progression in the series of places on Hannibal's body that Will's teeth need to touch. "Here, please." He taps the skin with two fingers. Against his sticky thigh, Will's cock is hard. Hannibal finds this wonderful. He can't wait to see what Will would like to do about it.

Their hands are joined so tightly that Hannibal's fingers are beginning to ache. They throb in time with his shoulder, which is already swelling spectacularly. Will's fingers on his chin are so warm and slippery with sweat. Both of them are, really, slippery with mingled seed and sweat between them. Hannibal will change the sheets when Will seems sated. Now, though, he waits on Will's pleasure. On his hands and his teeth and the pleasure of their bodies, which feel truly like they have begun to melt together.

Will is faintly surprised by that - fingers against Hannibal's own chest, indicating where next he'd like Will's teeth. Breath stutters, for a moment, gaze sparking underneath the sweep of his lashes when he looks to the point Hannibal is indicating, and thinks the moments spent evening his breath may have been wasted. They're unsteady across Hannibal's skin when he bows his head, mouth pressed against chest and fingers before he opens his mouth and bites down into the stretch of sweat-slicked skin across his chest - it isn't kind. It's as quick and bruising as the rest had been, and Will enjoys it as much as he's already thinking of where next to do it.

He aches, where he shifts forward against Hannibal's thigh. Still, their hands are tangled together. He does it again, half listening to the sounds Hannibal might make if he's oversensitive and touched, and half focused on shifting further down to scrape his teeth over his ribs. Less force, but so much slower - taking his time, the way he'd nuzzled into the blooming bruise over his jaw.

Will is decisive when he bites, Hannibal is learning. No sign of hesitation or fear, only quick and sharp like the ermine he is. His jaws are as strong as the animal's, too. Hannibal is certain that he could remove flesh, if he tried. Could certainly scar and spill blood. And Will longs to bite. That's in the hitch of his breath and the light in his eyes. Hannibal will happily indulge him. The aftermath of orgasm has lessened Hannibal's tolerance for pain, as he knew it would. This bite hurts as badly as anything a lover has ever done to him. He convulses beneath Will, cock twitching weakly. The sound that escapes his lips is half a cry and half a groan. It's a moment before Hannibal can lift his hand and tap the jut of his hip that Will was so taken with earlier. Teeth on bone will be agony. Hannibal longs for it. 

It takes a moment to notice where Hannibal's hand has gone, distracted as Will is with the faintest soft curve to his belly. It's sweet. He's fit, deceptively strong under those expensive clothes, but here, just a gentle suggestion of belly. Will wants to bite into that curve, and see how Hannibal curls over him then. He sounds better than any crooning blues song from a poor reception radio.

Instead, for the moment, Will lets his attention flit to where Hannibal is tapping against his fish spike hip - red and slow-developing faint shadows from Will's hand. Will doesn't strike fast, this time - instead, he settles lower, his arm coming to loop underneath Hannibal's leg and hold it tight with a hand splayed across his sticky abdomen. At least there are towels for another bath, he thinks, wry, as his gaze turns up and watches Hannibal expectantly. Waiting, with his mouth hovering open and wet, poised over his hip, hand pinning him. He doesn't mind indulging him in this moment, but Will waits regardless for reciprocation in that indulgence. 

Will's fascination with his body is the best thing Hannibal's ego has ever seen. To be admired and hurt by this wild boy, to be truly seen by him. Hannibal thinks he might die. He can certainly say please. More than that. Hannibal gathers up the tatters of his composure and laughs low in his throat at Will's insistence upon being asked. He is as particular as Hannibal himself about manners, though Hannibal knows that he would never admit it. "Bite, bien-aimé. Please." He bestows the words upon Will, as though he craved a far more gracious favor. As though Will's teeth in his hip were necessary for life. As though having once felt them, Hannibal will require their succor for the rest of his days. There may be more truth to that than he is willing to give voice to.

Will is not quite holding him down, but the position removes Hannibal's leverage almost entirely. Hannibal is sure this is deliberate. He writhes a little, experimentally, to see if he can. It's as ineffectual as the flopping of the fish that Will had named him, helpless to avoid being eaten.

The resulting expression that crinkles Will's eyes is pleased - perhaps a bit too much so - but then he's already dipping his head. Fitting his mouth to the sharp shape of Hannibal's hip, his mouth opening and setting his teeth light into flesh. He's got no extra hands for the throbbing line of his cock resting up against his belly, little relief in the way of languidly rolling his hips into the bed below them. Too plush, rich boy soft and spoiling. That's fine.

Will increases the pressure of his teeth steadily, but not slow; his gaze flickering up the length of Hannibal's body, arm tightening with his movements, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Muscles that bunch and release, while he imprints bruises from his teeth over the bruises from his fingers on Hannibal's hip. The skin is thin here - he'll feel it when he moves in his expensive clothes, and that thought lights Will up.

Hannibal fully expects to be bleeding when Will lifts his head. His teeth feel sharp enough to divide bone. Tears return to Hannibals' eyes but they don’t fall as his throat thickens and his body bows upward. He reaches out, though Will’s hand is still in his. Hannibal’s mouth works as he forces himself to go toward the pain in his mind instead of fleeing from it. Will would not let him flee, in any case. Better to look into the face of this thing, allow it to pass through him, than try to resist it, Hannibal knows. 

He pants in half-syllables as he fights for control over himself. Not fighting Will, no. Hannibal thinks that they won’t fight each other after this. Not when they’re so dangerous together.

Will hasn't broken the skin completely, but it's close. His sharper teeth piercing skin and beading blood up to the surface, leaving copper in his mouth and stained across his teeth when he finally released Hannibal and lifts his head to watch his body twist and arch. He's seen street art and performances for most of his life; dancers and musicians both for fun and for coin out on Louisiana streets, early morning well late into the night. The ease with which some of them move for their passion fascinating a younger Will while simultaneously embarrassing him. He'd seen their lives in their faces, their movements. Reasons and excuses and exhaustions, before Will had learned not to look. Will looks at Hannibal now, as he brings his fingers down to Hannibal's hip and presses into the imprint of his teeth, bruises and blood. 

"Beau," Will rasps. Using his arm to arch Hannibal's leg higher, to tip his face into the press of sticky thigh while bright, sharp eyes stay steady on Hannibal's face. The expression there lighting him up, keeping him lit, shuddering in the warm air. Thick Cajun French spilling out, relaxed compared to Hannibal's elegant flow. "I like the noises you make. You're beautiful." Can't quite manage the words, when I hurt you. It's true enough, even still. Will presses his teeth against Hannibal's thigh.

Hannibal flinches, truly flinches, at the press on teeth to his thigh, so near his cock and balls, so near arteries that could spill his life onto the sheets. Nerves strung piano wire tight, he gazes down at Will, wondering if he knows how close Hannibal is to the end of his abilities. Will, whose pressure on his thighs grounds Hannibal even as he feels his leg leveraged to greater vulnerability. He stares at Will, hearing the compliments echo but only feeling those teeth. 

Gathering himself up inside, Hannibal tosses his head, then does his best to shake it back and forth. Words stick in his throat, no and please and more. Getting away from Will or at least out of his grasp feels impossible, but Hannibal gathers himself to try anyway. There is still interest in his fear, there will always be interest in Will, he thinks, but there is a line here that Hannibal can’t cross. Would beg Will not to cross, if he could only manage to say the words.

Will's hand tightens instinctively around Hannibal's leg when he jerks, teeth pressed close and heavy lidded gaze up Hannibal's body, watching him. He smells of sticky heat and sweat-salt, and Will's mouth waters. Jaw aching, whether from the urge to bite or from the fact he's already done so too many times. Fingers flexing, around Hannibal's thigh and their tangled fingers, their arms stretched to keep the connection. If it weren't for how tightly Will was holding onto him, he thinks they would have slipped apart ages ago.

The fact they haven't is a detail that sticks with him. The fact that Hannibal looks like he's trying, for the first time, to arch away from him doesn't escape his notice. Will breathes for several long moments, wrestling that impulsive urge back tight under control - stop looking, stop. He doesn't know how long it's been, when he finally dips forward. Uses his grip on Hannibal's thigh to spread him, and touch his mouth to the top of his thigh. No teeth, just his mouth - too gentle, on the tail end of what he's done, what he wants to do. Brushing like a promise for later across Hannibal's skin before he rests his cheek against his knee, watching him with heavy, dark eyes.

Hannibal watches Will watching him and cannot help laying himself bare for Will to see. Hannibal truly doesn’t want to fight, has neither the ability nor the will in that moment, but he is prepared to try if Will shows signs of biting there. He twists his fingers in Will’s. Will, who will not let him go. Hannibal’s eyes go wide when Will lowers his head, more than a little terror in them. His teeth click together, preparing to weather the bite, to kick, to keep silent. Hannibal isn’t quite sure. He doesn’t have to find out. 

He closes lids over blown pupils at the gentle touch of Will’s kiss. He’d forgotten that Will could be gentle as well as careful. He’d hurt Hannibal so expertly, so carefully, wringing every last ounce of Hannibal’s tolerance out of him. Hannibal had been afraid that that might not be enough.That he might not be enough to withstand Will’s desire. But Will’s control is as good as Hannibal’s. Better, in this moment. 

Hannibal tilts his head back in the pillows, eyes still closed, and tries to remember how to breathe. Will’s bites throb in concert down his body, four points of agony unraveling him. Gradually his fingers unclench from Will’s and lie still. “A moment, please,” he asks thinly. “And then I will look after you. 

Will smooths his hand against the grain of fine hair across Hannibal's leg, patting gently at the rump of him before he unwinds from him. There are few points of ache on him - shoulders, his sides, the sting across his scalp where he's sure grasping fingers have pulled out a few hairs. It isn't close, he's sure, to the bites he's left across Hannibal's skin. Swelling and bruising, places that will ache fiercely in the morning if there's nothing done about them. Will's own welts are distant - settling back on his thighs bring back a flicker of his earlier pain, but his focus is elsewhere, now. Thoroughly distracted, pulling himself together, and trying not to unravel again at the image Hannibal makes spread across the bed.

Gently, he untangles their fingers. His knuckles ache. He's as careful with Hannibal as he was with the back door in the kitchen; impulse rising, trying to smother it in deliberate and careful movements. Will's breath was shallow. "I'm satisfied," Will tells him. He is; hard, still, and aching. Even the denial was satisfying, in its own way. His voice is a stark contrast to Hannibal's - rough, thick. Will runs his tongue over his front teeth, and imagines he tastes pennies. "Would you like that moment alone, darlin'?"

Hannibal shakes his head as he draws himself up stiffly. The bites ache ferociously as he pulls himself up into a sitting position and draws his knees up against his chest, a habit learned long ago to make himself a smaller, less vulnerable target. Hannibal wraps his arms around his shins and looks at Will. He shakes his head again. Solitude isn't welcome, not when he could have Will's company still.

Hannibal works hard to calm himself, to get his breathing and his heart rate under control, to pull away from the fear of what Will might have done. What he did not do. Hannibal isn't certain why he stopped and will not ask, but he is grateful nonetheless. Seeing Will forgo his own pleasure pains him, but he won't force the issue. He'll look after Will in the way he likes when he asks for it, and if he doesn't ask, Hannibal will show him affection in other ways, because of the courtesy Will has shown him. "No, not alone, bien-aimé." And Hannibal reaches out to him to draw him closer if he cares to come.

Will watches Hannibal draw himself up like an old man, careful and slow - and then into himself, like a child. Each breath is easier to take than the last, and Will - he could resist Hannibal's drawing hand, but he doesn't want to, much, he finds. He prefers this, shifting closer on sore thighs and hesitating before he carefully begins to smooth down the wild nest that has become Hannibal's hair. There's little for it, since it's dried that way, but the repetitive motion, with a purpose, soothes him in much the same way that baiting hooks does. Simple, pleasant actions. Despite his initial hesitation, he enjoys it. Touching Hannibal, he thinks, is something he thinks wouldn't be the chore it is with most everyone else. Even if looking at him too closely right now dizzies Will, makes him lightheaded.

"Not alone, then." A placid agreement. With growing distance from that earlier dark impulse - it's easier to do this, to show a little care in how he handles him. He doesn't think Hannibal would appreciate a hand on him with the assumption that he's spun sugar, and Will doesn't care to act that way. Caiman eyes, but not the hide; Will's teeth had proven that. "Another bath, maybe. Soon."

Hannibal watches Will draw slowly closer in his peripheral vision, his eyes focused straight ahead, mapping the shadows and wrinkles in the sheets. He trembles a little as Will’s hand settles on his head, but still when he feels only slow, careful strokes. Distantly, Hannibal knows that his hair is in terrible disarray. Under normal circumstances, he would excuse himself immediately to go and comb it, splash some water on his face, and yes, shower. His thighs are still sticky with his own seed. The awareness of his physical state recedes in the face of reordering his inner landscape. Slow, regular breaths help. Will’s attention helps immensely.

“I am not easily frightened.” Hannibal says, still looking ahead. “You have a natural aptitude, though. And very sharp teeth.” He turns his head to look at Will, eyes still wide and wet but filled with more than a little adoration now. Will did what he was asked, and no more. That alone is worthy of so much. That he is capable of so much more astounds Hannibal. He would go that close to the edge of his endurance again, just to admire Will’s control. “I will join you in the bath, if you like.” The shower is large enough for three people, easily. It would be good to be clean now, he decides, and to wash and disinfect his bites. 

The combination of words, the tone of them and the look in Hannibal's eyes when he finally turns to look at him - Will's gaze dips, unable to confront that combination. Too much. So much, particularly in the lulling aftermath. Will clears his throat, quiet and as unobtrusive as possible. "I don't want to look at people," he returns; it seems fair. It makes him feel awkward. "The way I want to look into you." One more soft spot for them both. Will's hand has, at some point during Hannibal's words, paused in his hair; he picks the motion back up, gentling him the same way he's done with dogs in the past - he doesn't think the comparison would be appreciated.

"J'aimerais," Will agrees, when the feel of Hannibal's hair has become something he thinks he will remember when it's least convenient. "I would like." Now, he would. Later is another story. He tips his head, allows his temple to rub very briefly with Hannibal's - a terrible moment of weakness that Will may come to regret later - before he unwinds from him and moves for the edge of the bed. "Is there more salve?"

Hannibal produces the jar of salve from the nightstand as he follows Will off the bed, his temple still heated where it touched Will’s. He’s turning Will’s words over in his mind. Will sees very clearly, he knows, finely honed intuition and perception and likely more. No doubt most people are uninteresting or abhorrent to him. Hannibal decides to be pleased that Will finds him interesting. Wants to look into him. He would enjoy letting Will see, he thinks, and tell him what he observes. Hannibal keeps a careful inventory of his own mind. It would be useful to have help in cataloguing. 

With every step to the bathroom he feels the bite sing on his hip. Indulging an impulse, he reaches out for Will’s hand to place over it so that he can feel the movement of Hannibal’s pelvis beneath the swollen skin. “You did well,” Hannibal says, in case Will needs reassuring that he will not shy away in fear from his teeth in the future. Only his teeth in certain places.

Will halts when his hand is taken - has to resist the knee jerk reaction to yank it away, going stiff before he relaxes when he realizes what it is Hannibal is doing. He half turns near the entry to the bathroom, eyes catching Hannibal's before they flicker down to where he's touching that marked skin. Soft and swollen under Will's rough fingertips, giving a little under the pressure of his thumb, sweeping over to feel the sharp point of that hip. Something hungry in Will flickers like a candle, flaring and dimming, again. 

When his gaze moves back up to Hannibal, it's dark and heavy lidded. He can only keep it there for a few moments, before he swallows and has to look away. "So did you." Making it into the bathroom, Will pauses, where he lets out a short huff and turns back for the door. "Start it," he says - but it nearly sounds like a question. "I'll grab the towels." Left behind, because Will was - is - distracted by this man.

Seeing Will’s hunger sends echoes of it through Hannibal. Hannibal stands stock still as Will strokes and looks, half-hard again now that he's composed himself. Perhaps they can look after each other in the shower, Hannibal thinks, imagining sliding against Will with only water between them. No friction, only languid, easy movement. 

Will seems to be thinking of far more mundane things, and ready to leave Hannibal’s side for them. His fingers slide away, and Hannibal clutches at them. “Will.” It’s the first time he’s said the name. He needs it, wants Will’s full attention. “Comment puis-je tu mettre à l'aise?” As accustomed as Will seems to be to discomfort and lack of ease, Hannibal wants badly to take that care from him, if only for a moment.

Will goes still again at the sound of his name - he nearly hadn't recognized it in that accent. He turns his head to be looking at Hannibal again, a slow move, as their hands stay suspended between them. It's easy to recall how tightly they'd held on only a handful of minutes ago. He watches Hannibal, his mouth eventually curving into something wry - a little self deprecating. "This was good," he responds, finally. It was. Will felt as close to comfortable in his own skin as he's felt in - he doesn't have an answer for that.

But those are dark impulses and thoughts and not things that can be indulged in often. That shouldn't be indulged in often, thinking of sharp teeth, and the press of them to soft, vulnerable skin. Will doesn't know what he'll see, if he looks too long into the dark water parts of himself. "Je ne sais pas." Will finishes. His shrug is small and awkward. "A shower now? You're shining." Slick with sweat and salve, and, perhaps, a bit of a change in subject.

It is more of an answer than Hannibal expected, but less than he’d hoped for. He nods with a promise: “Je vais savoir.” He lets Will‘s hand go, but watches him for a moment, pleased at his choice of descriptors. “So are you,” he murmurs. “Gloriously.” And with a wink he ducks into the bathroom to open the shower door and turn the water on. Before he can step in, though, Hannibal catches sight of himself in the bathroom mirrors. He has no qualms about nudity, nor hatred for his own body, but the man in front of him is unrecognizable. Shining is a a kind adjective. Hannibal is sweaty and disheveled, lividly marked, with a swollen lip and reddened eyes. He thinks for a moment of begging Will to let him repair his appearance in private. Watching the transformation will remove all the mystery. But he doubts Will would agree to that, so he steps under the water and begins lathering castile soap onto the imprints of Will’s teeth. It stings ferociously.

That, Will thinks, is partially what worries him. He cocks a brow at the wink, but doesn't comment - the swoop of his belly is enough of an answer, even if Hannibal isn't aware of it. He fetches the towels, gladly, because he wasn't asked. It takes less time than he'd like for it to, but it isn't such a shame to come to find himself back in company when he returns.

Will places the towels on the counter, and briefly watches Hannibal in the shower. No one looks lovely without making some sort of effort while bathing, and Will is simultaneously pleased and annoyed that he's both right and wrong in this instance. Silly looking, yes, with Hannibal's hair plastered against his forehead from the water, but also - bruised and flushed. Touchable. Having been touched. "Your grapes are warm, now," Will comments, in lieu of announcing himself. He steps for the shower, briefly considers their positions, and climbs in with a foot of space behind Hannibal. "How are they?" A nod, toward swollen bites.

Hannibal cedes his place directly under the water to Will, stepping to the side to work on his hair. It’s a bit shorter than he keeps it at home, because the barber in New Orleans last week didn’t listen properly. At least it will dry quickly. As he scrubs, he considers Will’s question. “Je ne les regrette pas,” he decides, finally, in spite of the stinging. Tomorrow, when his tolerance for pain has recovered completely, he’ll enjoy them. A reminder of Will’s ferocity. 

When there is no chance of soap in his eyes, Hannibal opens them to watch Will, to reach out and turn him a little so that Hannibal can see his back more clearly. The swelling has indeed lessened, though some of the stripes on his thighs are very purple. Another application is needed, if Will allows it. Hannibal trails a hand down to the small of his back and rests it on one slim hip, watching the water run down narrow shoulders and over the curve of Will’s small, perfect ass. “Ce qui vous soulagera?” he murmurs, aloud, but mostly to himself. Is there something in Will that shies away from pleasure, he wonders. Would he prefer rough treatment, a hand holding him down and forcing his body to react. Dangerous ground to navigate.

Will wonders if he'll be saying that tomorrow, when that bruise along his jaw settles in fully, but he doesn't say it. Instead he slicks back his hair when it's wet enough, out of his face, and runs a hand down his body to get rid of the lingering feel of sweat and come - dried tacky against his skin. Water warm where it hadn't been before, and there's enough salve left on his skin that it isn't immediately agony on his own bruises - though the heat starts to make them throb in the worst of the areas, 

Will doesn't startle at the touch, but it does take him a moment to follow the direction of Hannibal's hand urging on his skin. He can feel the weight of his stare, and Will has to breathe deliberately and slow so that it doesn't shift into something shallow and make him lightheaded in the shower. "You're very persistent," Will notes, though it didn't altogether sound like that comment was for him. When Will turns to look over his shoulder, it is - of course - a mistake. Will recognizes the misstep immediately, but that doesn't mean that it lessens the blow; he's bruise heavy on one side, barring the mark on his hip that's on the other, and damp and flushed Will thinks about evening it out with his teeth on Hannibal's opposite shoulder. Instead, he breaths out, turning enough to be able to thumb at the corner of Hannibal's mouth. "Sore?" Voice too even, too much in his head, a little wary wondering if a kiss that wasn't bitten finished would hinder - or help. He doesn't know which option he preferred.

Of course Hannibal is persistent. He would have been dead years ago if he’d never learned to fight and work and talk in ways that get him what he wants. And what he wants now is to find out what brings Will pleasure and relief. What will make him sigh and groan and sleep easily curled in Hannibal’s bed. He needs to catalogue all these things. All things Will, in time.

He feels Will’s eyes flick over him, jumping from bruise to bruise, perhaps a little proud of his handiwork. When Will reaches out, he bends his head a little into the questing fingers. “Good,” he answers, a little muffled from how he’s lipping at Will’s fingers, taking them into his mouth and circling them with his tongue, eyes never leaving Will. Of course his lip is sore, and of course he relishes it. 

Will’s shoulder must be sore, too, but that doesn’t stop Hannibal from reaching out for it and pulling him closer, out of the way of the direct fall of the water. Spray will sting his bruises less but still wash away the sweat. Nothing, Hannibal determines, nothing that isn’t Hannibal is allowed to hurt Will. Nothing and no one.

Will's breath catches, terrible weakness on his part that he doesn't stop in time. He's annoyed at himself about it, at Hannibal, and the curl of his tongue pressing against his calluses. It shivers through him, cock heavy where he's close enough that a deep inhale is going to bring him flush with Hannibal. Will's impulse has never done him many favors, but now, it has him curl his fingers to hook behind white teeth that could bite just as surely as Will could, and guide Hannibal's mouth to his; uncertainty of an outcome has stopped Will from acting plenty of times in the past, but it doesn't stop him now. Damp fingers slipping free of Hannibal's mouth to press his own against it.

It doesn't automatically quiet the roar in his head - Will hadn't expected that it would, really. What's curious, is that resisting the urge to press his tongue down hard onto Hannibal's swelling mouth has him turning his focus sharply onto Hannibal. The half step he takes closer is unintentional, and has him release a sharp breath against his mouth.

Hannibal draws Will in slowly, since it seems that he wants to come, holds him and kisses him tenderly. He tangles one hand in sodden curls and slides the other down Will’s side to curl around his hip. He’s sweet this time, not biting, so Hannibal lets him explore and is sweet to him in turn. It’s classic, and it stirs a fanciful turn in him, romantic and teasing, as he explores Will’s wry mouth and presses into his lean, lithe form. 

“Most lovely,” Hannibal sighs, when he has to come up- though not far- for air. He dares to give Will’s ass a squeeze as he looks at him, eyes pleased and proud. Hannibal rests their foreheads together, his bent a little lower than Will’s to account for the difference in their heights. “I will do anything for you,” he offers, romantic whim making him far too generous. “Anything you ask.”

It's such a sharp contrast to their earlier interactions that Will isn't quite sure where to find footing, here. There are tiny aches that enhance rather than distract from it - his shoulder, his thighs. His breath hitches again when his cock is nudged between them, against water-slick skin, matching the slide of his hands over bicep and waist. The press and pull of their mouths is almost tender, leaving Will feeling like he's slipping. Wet feet on a slippery porcelain tub. 

But he's upright, forehead pressed to the solid pressure of Hannibal's and laughing quietly in response. There's an edge to the sound, Will abruptly aware of just how dangerous it is to go soft here - his hands flexing on shoulder, near a marked hip. This is an entirely different sort of way to go belly up. At least the danger present in hard hands and unforgiving teeth was simple, and something Will had ample experience in. This softness - Will needs to adjust how to protect against it. "Pretty words," Will tells him, sharing warm breaths between them, made warmer still from the heat of the water. "Be careful with those." 

He ought to have expected this sort of response, Hannibal thinks. Will is wary, as attached to staying alive and well as Hannibal is. And Hannibal would have it no other way, he decides. He will have this pretty boy not because he is easy to catch, but because he is difficult. He will draw him in with small things, a hand sliding just to cup, not to fondle sore skin. Fingers rubbing at tense muscles in the base of his neck. Breathed sighs shared in the hope that Will might sigh in turn. A gentle, true embrace before Hannibal slides down Will’s body to kneel on the slick tile at his feet. 

He lays his head in the hollow of Will’s thigh, cheek to flat belly, and looks up through the fall of water. It is the sort of gesture that went well-received before. Now there is nothing between them but a little more trust. “Why?” Hannibal asks, blinking water winsomely from his lashes. “Do you intend to take advantage of me?”

Will's wry twist of a smile softens, disappearing in the wake of Hannibal slipping to his knees in front of him. He doesn't think of the stutter-stop-start of his breath again - too taken with the sight of Hannibal there, how the twist and bend of him must have ached his hip. How the porcelain must be unforgiving against his knees. He stares for a long moment down at him, before Will's hand raises, and trails his thumb down the sharp line of his jaw. Peacock. "Could be said I've already taken something from you," Will points out - fairly reasonable, he thinks, when he's stroking his thumb over that blooming bruise. Steadying himself with his opposite hand on Hannibal's shoulder, opposite thumb pressing to his collarbone. "But you did say please." He was very polite in offering it. Will strokes that same thumb over one of those sharp, sharp cheekbones, sure that he'll cut himself if he puts any sort of pressure there. His gaze flickers away from the movement of his hand, back to Hannibal's eyes. "The question is what do you intend?"

Hannibal's hip does ache, and the tile is hard beneath his knees, but he has suffered far more at the hands of those he loved far less. He hardly notices, caught up in observing Will, in feeling him. His belly ripples against Hannibal's ear as he closes his hands around muscular calves. It is a position of adoration as much as one of supplication. Hannibal has seen a thousand statues in these poses. He feels ready to pour spikenard over Will's feet and dry them with his hair. "Taken?" he murmurs. "They were gifts you gave." He mouths inches south, across Will's hips, around his navel, then turns his head into Will's hand to receive his caresses. "I intend," Hannibal adds. "For you to ask me." He has said 'please' for Will more than once, after all. Will can ask, and Hannibal will obey, which he justifies, to the part of his brain that doesn't want to swallow Will's cock yesterday, by telling himself that Will can hardly bear to accept the merest kindness. How much could he possibly ask? 

Will's gaze flickers, lips parted to blow out a quiet breath. It still feels too soft - too sweet, almost, for as suggestive as their positions are. He can feel the imprint of Hannibal's mouth across his skin, even when there's water dripping down and interrupting the sensation. A phantom touch lingering. If it weren't for the drum of the water and the sound of it rattling in the pipes, his throat clicking on the tail end of his hard swallow might have been easily overheard. "Some might disagree," he says, but it's little more than stalling, while his thumbs press into Hannibal's skin and sweep over it in slow waves. Head bowed, watching him, while he feels his heart beat in the welts on his thighs, his cock. If I don't? He doesn't ask.

Will tries not to ask for much - of anything. Asking incurs debt, and Will is particular in who he owes a debt to. It was a swift and early lesson, and he hasn't forgotten it since. This one, he thinks, peering down at Hannibal with pupils blown wide and a desire to look away as much as he wants to continue watching, is not one that should be owed. 

... But Will feels belly up, too soft, and he's done plenty of things today that he thinks he'll come to regret tomorrow, so what's one more? Impulse, he thinks, and then says, "Your mouth," while he presses his thumb to the corner of Hannibal's mouth once more. The words the faintest bit unsteady. "Touch me?"

Hannibal had considered trying to trap Will in a debt and dismissed the idea as gauche, unworthy of Will, not that he was like to fall for such a simple ruse. In fact, he feels mildly in Will’s debt. Will did get him off, after all, had held him and did as Hannibal asked. He must owe Will at least equal reciprocation. It’s hardly a great hardship. Hannibal feels like he’s been aching to taste Will for years. “My mouth, cher?” he repeats, detaching a hand from Will’s leg to push streaming hair from his eyes. “But where?” Playing the romantic idiot is endlessly amusing to Hannibal.

To demonstrate the many places that Will might desire his mouth, Hannibal dips his head and nips at the tender skin of his upper thigh, teeth pulling but not sinking in. He noses up into Will’s sac, letting the furred skin drape against his cheek like velvet. Where his nose trails he follows with his tongue, licking droplets away. Hannibal tastes delicately Will’s taut foreskin, and the pulsing veins on his shaft, but he does not suck properly or take Will into his mouth. Instead, after teasing for a moment, he sits back and looks up at Will, a smile sitting lightly around his eyes. “We should be comfortable for this. And dry.” He holds his palms up, as though in prayer, asking this indulgence and also help up off of the slick tile.

Will has bitten into his cheek to keep quiet, long learned habit keeping him from verbally responding to the taunting touch of mouth and tongue on his skin. It does nothing to help the quick, shallow way his chest has started to rise and fall, nor the involuntary clench of his hand on Hannibal's shoulder - the look he opens his briefly closed eyes to deliver is heavy-lidded and wry. "You're very funny, aren't you." It's not a question. Will takes Hannibal's hand, bracing his feet to better help him rise. "I'd be surprised if someone hasn't put a gris gris on you for that mouth yet." His fingers tighten around Hannibal's hand for the time it takes to rock into his space, kissing that mouth with a harsher edge to it than before. Will doesn't introduce his teeth again, half tempted as he is, and steps back out of his space a moment later. Safer, that way.

He finishes rinsing, with a cursory scrubbing at his skin. When he steps out, Will is careful to drop on the plush bath mats, reaching for the stack of towels left on the counter that he'd brought in, skin feeling hot and sensitive underneath the material he dries himself with. 

Hannibal follows Will close on his heel, rubbing a hand across his stinging mouth. He doesn’t know what a gris gris is, but he understood Will’s tone well enough. He’d felt it from him as they slid together under the water. Once Will Graham wants something, he’s learning, he doesn’t give up wanting it easily. And he doesn’t like obstacles between him and it.

He’d helped Hannibal up, though, slipped easily beside him through the last moment of the shower. Now he stands being far too rough with himself as he dries off. Hannibal stretches languidly on the bathmat next to him, as though nothing hurts at all. He bends doubles to rub his own towel gently up his legs. He takes care drying between them, minding the heavy swing of his cock, where any friction at all would make him gasp. As he straightens up and turns to look at Will, he runs the towel over his ass and back to drape over his shoulders. “You’d better go make yourself comfortable,” he suggests seriously, as though both of them aren’t singing to be touching each other again. “On your hands and knees, I think, while I make myself presentable.” And to be infuriating, he reaches for his comb, clearly in no great hurry.

Will doesn't pause, but it's a very near thing - his hand stutters in the act of mopping up water from his chest, gaze cutting over to Hannibal to watch with faintly narrowed, dark eyes as he goes through the motions of being as aggravating as possible. "You think," Will repeats, as if he hadn't heard correctly, still studying Hannibal. The drier part of the towel he runs over his hair for the second time that day - wonders briefly if there will be a third, and then denies the idea as a waste of water - while considering that. Considering the bite to his blood that urges him to step in close and press himself against damp, warm skin. Their height differences would work well for him, if he did; it wouldn't take much stretch to duck his head and bite a mark into the back of a shoulder.

But - no. Will settles the towel around his shoulders when his hair is damp but not dripping, mimicking Hannibal as he turns for the door. "Prends ton temps, peacock." He tells him politely, despite the name. His head inclines where he's looking over at Hannibal in the mirror, and makes a point of just nearly brushing against the tight skin of his swollen, bruised hip on his way to the door - very nearly brushing other, less aching places, as well. He has no intention of waiting while displaying himself, whatever Hannibal thinks - and however hard his cock throbs.

Hannibal watches experiences with a flushed face and a redder cock this little performance with something like awe. Will could be less charming, less of a minx, and Hannibal would be perfectly happy to suck him off for the beauty of him, but as he is...Hannibal’s mouth waters. His plans to arrange his hair, maybe even shave, fly out the window. He’s hot on Will’s heels into the bedroom, reaching out squeeze his ass firmly in the process. “Les paons sont des oiseaux très paresseux,” he informs Will, breath hot on his ear. The comparison is too far off for words. Hannibal will not even entertain the notion of it, but he can’t help smiling fondly at the nickname. 

The sheets are a bit the worse for wear, but Hannibal decided he’ll change them after the imminent exertions. He seats himself on the bed and holds his arms out to Will. “Come and let me make you comfortable, little fish.” Two can play at this game. “See how lazy I am.”

Didn't that just work him up, Will thinks, feeling the heat and shock of him, his breath and hands on him, travel up his spine. "Oui," Will says, perhaps slightly more out of breath than called for. "Your point?" His eyes have narrowed at the little fish comment, feeling it settle and sting in his blood. Enough to urge him on, to step forward, claiming part of Hannibal's space for his own again. The fingers that drag through his damp hair are deliberate, and no less than the man deserves. It had dried wild before; Will will ensure it does so again, no less ridiculous.

He uses a knee to slide between Hannibal's, to part his legs and stand between them, for the time being. Blunt nails moving across his scalp as Will says, drawling, "Waving those feathers of yours must have tired you out. Je comprends."

Hannibal laughs, easy and genuine, and gathers Will up in an embrace, as brief as it is heartfelt. He bows his head into the hard fingers on his scalp, because even though he knows they’re tangling already messy hair, they feel impossibly good. Will, so close and so belligerent, is glorious. “Not too tired to look after you,” he says fondly. 

Taking a moment to untangle himself reluctantly from Will, Hannibal then launches himself backward onto the bed, ready to arrange himself in the most desirable posture he can devise. “Show me your pretty little tail now, come on.” Coaxing Will, an edge of teasing to the fondness, is something Hannibal thinks he’ll never tire of. “Comme soixante-neuf,cher.”

It is, Will thinks a little reluctantly, a very nice sound, to hear him laugh. Charming, however much he doesn't want to be charmed. If he doesn't admit to it, then it can't be held against him. "There we are," he says, studying the sprawl of him, coming closer until his knees are touching the bed and Will can feel his belly heat at the suggestion of it. Swooping at the risks, soft belly to soft belly, that has nothing to do with their positions. "With those feathers again. Flashy." There are other things to think about, besides how the weight of those arms around him had felt. How nice it had been, the ache of palms against his back and the warmth of those arms pressed against him. Like how there is very little dignity in crawling onto a bed with the intention of flipping their positions; Will's thighs ache with the movements, after a brief hesitation, but not nearly as badly as earlier.

He comes to settle with very little fanfare, something near self conscious settling its weight between his shoulders. But here, too, there are plenty of distractions, and Will balances his weight on one palm, to better run his fingers up Hannibal's flank towards a purple-swollen bruise. Will's voice is mild when he says, "If you come in my mouth without warning, I'll bite."

“I don’t expect your mouth at all,” Hannibal says primly, more than a little affronted at Will’s suggestion. Hannibal has never done such a thing in his life. Perhaps he ought to offer Will his references again. As it is, Hannibal wants to focus the fullness of his attention on enjoying the charms Will has offered him so sweetly, right in front of his face. Will’s mouth is a pleasure for another day. 

Hannibal sits up a little and reaches for a few pillows to pile under his neck and shoulders. He cants Will’s hips forward with gentle fingers as he surveys the deep cleft between the ripe globes of his ass. Hannibal reaches up to part them slightly and nose between them. He used to find the idea of the act disgusting, but after several lessons on the matter from a very strict taskmaster, he grew to enjoy it, so long as the hygiene of his partner could be trusted. Now Hannibal licks a broad stripe from the base of Will’s balls nearly to his tailbone, tone skittering over the tight pucker between.

"For the future, then." Too presumptuous, Will realizes after he's spoken. Too telling, too revealing of what's going on inside of his own head. He breathes in, listening to the rustle of fabric being jostled and moved - to speak again, maybe, though he isn't entirely sure what it is he'll say, though chances are it will be something to antagonize the other further and distract from the slip - but any words, argumentative or not, are caught and choked in Will's throat, tangled line unable to be reeled in. His next exhale is almost explosive, sharp and through his nose, forced to plant the hand he'd been using to tease at swollen skin back onto the bed. The slide of skin against skin, first, followed by hot breath. And then tongue - warm and wet and bold.

"What," he starts, and stops, hips jerking instinctively against the hands Hannibal has on him. Heart suddenly hammering and cock a heavy throb of heat between his legs. Goosebumps breaking out across his skin. It's a moment of heavy swallowing before he says, "Une surprise. That's - not what was expected."

Hannibal can’t resist a smug smile, though his words are kind. “You asked for my mouth.” He licks another stripe, slower now, to see what fantastic things Will’s breath will do again. If Hannibal were a better man, he’d lay any amount anyone cared to name that no one has done this for Will before. He focuses his attention closer and closer to Will’s rim, until he’s licking tight little circles around it. Hannibal makes no move to penetrate it, though. That’s something to coax Will into accepting. “Close your eyes,” he suggests, spreading his legs wide enough that Will can put his head down between them if he want. “Just let me kiss you this way, cher.”

"That is not," he has to pause, has to breathe. The words are thin, thinner than Will appreciates. It takes a moment to finish. "What I meant." His chest is rising and falling faster, hands tightening in the sheets underneath them both in an involuntary clench when the sensation of Hannibal's tongue continues to jolt through his system. There isn't enough of a moment for Will to catch his breath, to adjust to the sensation - to find a way to defend against the shock of intimate, wet warmth.

Anything else Will might have had to say is lost in his next harsh exhale, head bowing. Temple pressed to the warm, faintly damp skin of Hannibal's thigh. The desire to turn his head into soft skin and put his teeth to something to settle the ache that's sprung from how tightly he's clenching his jaw is enough that Will turns his head in the opposite direction.

This position has put Will’s abused thighs very close to Hannibal’s gaze. Very close to his mouth. He thinks he’s giving Will enough to pay attention to, so he leaves them alone for the moment and focuses his attention on sucking gentle kisses over Will’s delicate hole. One hand comes up to cup his balls tenderly while Hannibal reclines in comfort on his pillows and categorizes the textures of Will’s response.

Only when Will feels considerably wetter and a bit looser does Hannibal lift his head and urge Will’s hips higher still so he can press his cheek to the disorderly stripes. So close to the skin, Hannibal can smell the blood swelling beneath it. Inexpertly traumatized capillaries. Will learned his quiet carefulness in spite of his father, Hannibal thinks, not because of him. “How many,” he asks between kisses. Will is observant and practiced. No doubt he might have counted to distract himself from the pain of the blows.

Will's breath is strained when Hannibal takes his moment to lean back - his cock a hot, hard line of ache resting heavy between his thighs. And then, between his thighs - wet. Wet and exposed. He jerks, a little, when he's touched, his breath a harsh explosion out of his chest. The faintest tone to it makes it a groan, something he doesn't think to bite back until it's already out. "Twelve," Will says, when the question clicks. His voice is a wreck. He's hot and fuzzy minded, struggling to keep himself afloat against sensations while nearly completely distracted by them. Struggling not to lose himself under the wave of it, his spine bowing under the sensation of faint stubble pressed against raw skin. 

"Should've picked up a switch. Across the mouth to remind it to keep shut. Next time. He'll learn." The words are soft, despite his rough, wrecked tone, and almost rambled - slipped out, while his defenses are down. Ruined. Slipping back into memory of a too long glimpse of his father, in the aftermath - looking too closely, letting it carry him too far. It's a mixture of rough French and English, his father's way of speaking, before he turns his face into bedding. Knuckles aching from how tightly he's gripping. Will focuses on the sting. "Touch me." It isn't a question, but the almost desperate tone doesn't make it a command, anymore, either.

Hannibal almost regrets asking. There is cold rage rising in him at the picture Will’s painted. Rage isn’t what Will needs from him, then, though. Soon, Hannibal tells himself, as he reaches beneath Will to take him in hand, careful to miss the welts on his way by. He steadies Will with his left hand on his side. “This is all you have to learn today, cher. Only pleasure.” Hannibal’s strokes are long with lazy, careful pressure. It is foremost in Hannibal’s mind again that he was the reason that Will had no money to take home to his father. So he will please Will now, and later he will ensure that Graham is in no position to demand anything of Will ever again.

Hannibal lays his cheek so close to Will’s bruised flanks that he can feel the heat of them and strokes him with practiced ease, a little flourish of his wrist at each stroke. Will is due this: careful, skilled treatment, and so Hannibal will give it to him. What he thinks about during it, though, is the treatment due Will’s father. A beating would be fitting, perhaps with his own belt. Perhaps the removal of a hand. The cleanest answer, whispers Hannibal’s practicality to his rage, would be removal of the man altogether, all at once. A fall from the dock in a drunken stupor. A wrong step into deep water. Water is all-consuming, Hannibal knows, and the water here perhaps more so than most.

Will is, typically, careful with his pleasure - considers it more relief than anything, perfunctory and, occasionally, mechanical. He has learned to be quiet with or about anything that might light him up in any pleasant way; it's why his inner cheek is bloody now, and why he's swallowed down the moan that has tried to rise up too many times since Hannibal has touched him. He's braced on an elbow, pressing his forearm for balance into the bed and feeling the heat of Hannibal's hand against his side. Will's opposite hand curls trembling fingers into Hannibal's thigh and grips hard. 

It doesn't matter how tightly he's holding on. He can feel the tightening in his belly, the tension in his thighs and back bowing him. Will struggles to his hands - as if that would help keep him, maybe, or to ensure Hannibal's thighs keep well clear of his mouth even when he hangs his head. His arms are shaking, elbows locked to keep himself from falling. "Je suis proche," Will chokes out. He wants to say his name - wants to taste the shape of Hannibal's name in his mouth when he's got the taste of copper from his own blood in his mouth. So he refrains, and tries - tries - not to lose himself to wondering if he can taste differences between them.

Such a polite warning, Hannibal thinks, though quite unnecessary. It does give him time to twitch his damp towel between them, though. Will’s movements are desperate, almost pained as Hannibal strokes him. He bends forward and wraps his free arm around Will to take as much of his weight as much as he can. “Whenever you like,” he murmurs. “That’s it, cher.” Gentle words of coaxing to guide Will to his end. To where Hannibal wants him to go. 

He keeps up the steady, even strokes, feeling Will pulse and thicken beneath him. His arousal is changing, growing headier. It surrounds Hannibal, now fully hard. This communion with a lover is rare for Hannibal. He had been content with his lessons, carefully planned and paid for. This is another kind of lesson entirely, primarily one in how addicting it is to please Will Graham. 

Will wonders, with heat licking up his spine and his cock jerking in Hannibal's grip, what it might feel like to come if he could watch those caiman eyes and how they might change. His hand flexes; blunt nails on curled fingers clinging hard to flesh, and Will comes to the weight of Hannibal against him, the heat of his arm around his body. Hips rocking into the hand underneath him, teeth clenched and doing nothing to muffle the harsh, low cry that tears itself out of his throat at long last. Embarrassing - dangerous - and too late to stop. Nothing like taking himself in hand, when necessary. This swamps him, pulls him tight like a hooked line. Vibrating with tension before it goes slack - only snagged.

Will goes slack. Elbows and shoulders locked to keep him upright over Hannibal, breathing harsh through pulsing aftershocks. Dismounting carries as much dignity as crawling on had, but it's the last thought he has. Will takes care in not kicking the man in the head, as much as could be asked of him at the moment, before he lays on his back - arching against the sheets when the sensation lights up bruises and shudders through him before he settles again, eyes closed.

The change in Will’s body as he comes has Hannibal closing his eyes, reeling from the plume of ecstasy that he can smell as well as feel. And oh, the glorious sounds Will makes, stifled at first and then heartfelt. Hannibal’s stomach clenches with want, but he holds Will steady throughout the aftershocks and then does his best to help him roll off. He sits up rapidly after Will has more or less settled and gathers the towel out of the way. After a moment’s consideration of the tableau, so that he can explore it’s every detail at leisure, he bends his head and carefully licks Will’s clean with light, lapping strokes of his tongue. As little stimulation to the oversensitive organ as he can manage.

Will tastes like steel and oysters, enough fish in his diet that Hannibal can catch the flavor, though it isn’t unappealing. He refuses himself more indulgence than is absolutely necessary, making haste to tuck a pillow under Will’s head for the moment while he looks down on him adoringly. He daubs the sweat from Will with the remaining towel and then nestles beside him to watch, propped on one elbow. Hannibal’s fingers tangle in damp curls, coaxing them away from Will’s forehead and back to lie tamely. “Come back to me when you can, cher.” 

The touch of tongue jerks Will's eyes open, tears a gasp from his throat. No time or thought to brace himself. His spine arches slightly, rubbing welts into the sheet underneath him and creating a feedback of ache and too much. He wants to press into that mouth, press away from it, hips juddering with the indecision. For as much as Will has experience with this act, at least, riding the aftermath of what's already been done makes it feel like each stroke of warm, wet muscle is so much more than it is. He's aching - back, thighs, his inner cheek. His cock. The shift of his gaze over to Hannibal is slow, a little hazy at the edges. Lips parted and breathing still shallow, but gradually evening out.

He can feel the plush comfort of the pillow underneath his head, a detail that sticks with his fuzzy brain for longer than it should. The hand in his hair, too. The heat between them is edging towards uncomfortable, but Will is reluctant to move anymore than necessary - he's settled in worse, during less enjoyable moments. He waits until he's certain that his voice will be even, realizing too late that he's been watching Hannibal with heavy lidded eyes for most of that time, "Not so lazy, I s'pose." Not as even as he would like, and far too hoarse - accent thick and drawling, heavier than it's been. 

With warm, solemn eyes, Hannibal watches Will watching him. The words when they come make him smile. “I told you I had excellent references,” he says primly, in his best English. He goes on stroking Will’s hair until it suits him to stop, and then he coaxes Will over to lie on his front, another pillow beneath his head for good measure. The salve is near at hand, so Hannibal occupies himself with reapplying it to Will’s bruises as carefully as before, a coat to settle in while he rests. “You may sleep a little now if you like. No harm will come to you.” He puts the salve away and bends to press a kiss to Will’s temple before crossing to the windows to open them. The afternoon air is cooling quickly, and it clears the steam of sex from the room, as Hannibal hoped it would. That done, he settles at the foot of the bed with his sketchbook and a sharp pencil, ready to watch over Will.

"Bien sûr." It curves Will's mouth, if faintly, hidden into the bend of his arm and the pillow when he's urged onto his front. Distantly, he's surprised that there's no mention of Hannibal's renewed erection being taken care of. But there's the thick spread of salve over tingling skin, taking whatever aches and throbbing had woken with his tensing and movements, and he sighs instead of commenting. He isn't so sure that he believes the reassurance, but like the pillows tucked underneath him without asking, it's a detail that sticks with him. Something he wants to twist over and over until he's seen it from all sides, and it stops being so interesting. He's too soft right now, feeling belly up even with it pressed to the bed. Struck vulnerable from pleasure and still wrung from it enough that it sounds much more tempting than it should, to indulge in a nap.

Instead he watches Hannibal move with eyes that are little more than slits. He moves with purpose, muscles shifting under skin and occasionally bringing into focus sharp bruising left behind from Will's mouth. Watches him settle on the bed, plush enough that it doesn't jostle him terribly when he does, with elegant fingers wrapped around his pencil. He's blurry, through Will's lashes, but he doesn't attempt to open his eyes wider. "Let me know when my clothes are dried." The words are heavy, spoken into his arm still where he hasn't lifted his head. Judging from the slice of sky seen through the window, he'll need to be leaving soon. 

“Of course,” says Hannibal quietly, patting Will’s foot, though he has no intention of doing so. After that he leaves Will alone, content to try and capture him as he is in his mind’s eye. He draws Will crouched, hand outstretched, a grimace in his eyes with the pain of the position, though his mouth is quirked up in a smile for the dog curled in the shadows. Not his best work, Hannibal knows. Too colored by nostalgia. Less than objective. He signs it anyway and rises carefully to take into the sitting room and spray with fixative. That done, he pads around the room, dressing in a green silk shirt and summer suit of pale blue linen and then letting himself silently out to go down to the laundry room. 

Will’s clothes are waiting for him folded in a neat stack. Hannibal collects then, noting the time before he goes upstairs. The family and guests will be gathering for Sunday supper soon. Hannibal can smell it in the air, Will’s catfish and fried okra. He could join them, he considers, trapping Will without his clothes. He could ask the cook to make two plates up, so that he could dine with Will before permitting him to leave. There is another choice, though, one Hannibal thinks about as he climbs the stairs back to his rooms. Letting himself through as quietly as he can manage, he set’s Will’s clothes on the nightstand and seats himself to wait for Will to stir.

For all of Will's intentions to lie there and allow himself a brief rest, he actually ends up dozing to the sound of pencil scratching against paper. For a long time, he's suspended in a state of not quite awake, not quite asleep - listening to the press of graphite against paper, and dreaming of old buildings and the peek of reptilian eyes through cracks in the stonework, watching him as he walks the street. The sound of tough-hide jaws splashing against swamp water following him, reminding him of old advice from fishermen on the docks, warning him of dangers in the bayou when it's courting season for those in it.

Will opens his eyes, and - for a heartbeat - doesn't recall where he is. He tenses on reflex, noting soft sheets and the smell of aloe and juniper - the sound of late Louisiana afternoon drifting in through the open window. His back is cool, and bare, but not aching. It's that small detail that brings him back, reminds him of where he is and, when he lifts his head and looks around, who he's with. Will relaxes, gaze sweeping down Hannibal now dressed and seated, and because any sort of leisurely cling of sleep was gone within the first few moments of his waking up, presses himself up to sitting. "I fell asleep." It would almost - almost - sound apologetic, if it weren't so surprised. Will clears his throat. "Pardon. How long?"

Hannibal sits up when Will does, but makes no pretense of not having watched him. “A few hours,” he says, calm. “It’s half past six.” Standing, he pours Will a glass of water, tepid but fresh, from the carafe beside the bed and holds it out to him. Will’s clothes are within easy reach, of course, and Hannibal is careful not to place himself between Will and them. Gestures can be so easily misinterpreted. Next he offers Will his sketchbook, open to the back, to show the fruits of his time. Will would want to see, Hannibal thinks, but he wouldn’t ask. Now there is no need for him to.

“You must be hungry,” Hannibal says, as nonchalantly as he can manage. “I wondered if you’d have dinner with me. There’s a restaurant I’ve meant to try, though I’d prefer not to go alone. Gautreau’s, on Soniat Street? Do you know it?” It’s nowhere that Will could ever afford, but known by reputation, it seems. Hannibal has walked by it before and smelled nothing but delicious things. Will might be a good dinner companion, quiet and observant, with a good appetite. “It seems only fair,” Hannibal adds, “since you treated me to lunch.”

Half past six. Will blows out a breath, murmuring a quiet merci to the glass that he accepts and sips from. The stale taste of wine and - after a casual jab of his tongue against the inside of his tender cheek - blood is lessened, and then washed away by the third drink. His gaze moves to his clothes, folded neatly on the stand, cleaner than they've been since even the last time that Will had washed them. With the glass in one hand, he quirks a brow at the offered sketchbook, but accepts it - his expression easing into something inscrutable as he looks down at what was drawn. The only suggestion of his surprise in his parted mouth, the faint line created when his brows draw in closer, just barely. Softer lines than those of what he'd seen previously, in buildings and the streets he'd drawn. Not around his shadowed eyes, though. His mouth.

It's signed. Will breathes out, slowly, studying that signature while his thumb rubs a careful, tiny arc against the corner of the paper, far from the marks on it. "Yes, I know it." He's taken too long to respond. His gaze doesn't move up immediately, but when it does, his eyes are dark and careful - studying Hannibal's face, his expression, from his position on his bed. He's never been, which he's sure goes unsaid. There's no where to set the sketchpad on the bed that he's certain is clean and won't smudge the paper, so he offers it back wordlessly. Gaze flickering down one last time to how Hannibal sees him, lingering. "I don't think Mawmaw's quite counts as 'treating you to lunch'." Casually arrogant and stubborn, even trailing after Will leading the way. Services had been promised and exchanged, but that isn't what this is. Gautreau's is well known, even among those making livings on pirogues - and the prices that are charged. Will thinks of stepping into the restaurant in fishing clothes, even laundered and neat, now. He tips his chin, refocusing his gaze on Hannibal with faintly narrowed eyes. "Are you mocking me? That, or you're expecting more of their patience than they likely have." No, they'd have no patience, and neither would Will. 

Hannibal takes in Will’s assessment of the drawing, the careful way he touches the paper. It is enough. He receives the sketchbook back and closes it. Will’s concerns are noted with a bowed head. Hannibal listens seriously. “Not mocking, no.” He stands and crosses to his closet, considering. “Would you allow me to lend you something?” He takes the trousers that he’d thought of for Will, brown cotton lawn, and lays them on the bed, considering. A white oxford shirt, always serviceable. And a waistcoat, blue flowers on a sable background. A little ostentatious, perhaps, but he thinks Will can pull it off.

Will watches, his brows rising increasingly higher as the moments pass, as Hannibal moves around his room. Near something that Will would call incredulous as he watches him lay clothes out across the bed - neatly pressed things. Neatly pressed, expensive things. Will wonders how one peacocks for others. "You're dressing me now?" He asks, tone dry as sun bleached bone. The cool bottom of the glass that he held coming to rest smooth against the top of his thigh. When he finally shifts off the bed, he does so by moving across the miles and miles of plush, comfortable space, to the other side. Effectively putting it between him and Hannibal. "Hadn't realized you were eager to lose réputation." Fucking was, he thinks, one thing. Putting a fisherman in pretty clothes and parading around in the faces of the upper class society Louisiana had to offer would not only affect Will.

Hannibal takes notes of the way Will puts distance and furniture between them, and pauses in his consideration of jackets. Will’s eyebrows are very high. “Any reputation I have here won’t matter in a month,” he reminds Will. It matters very little to him as it stands. The Boudreaux are friends of Hannibal’s uncle. Hannibal cares less for them than he does the waistcoat on the bed. “It would give me great pleasure to dress you and take you to dinner, if you would care to accompany me.” He understands Will’s hesitation but finds it utterly unnecessary. “If you would not, I will call you a taxi and then kiss you goodnight.” He waits, his own brows raised, to see which choice Will prefers.

And that is, Will thinks, a very good reminder, indeed. Any reputation I have here won't matter in a month. The water that he's still holding isn't enough to create condensation on the glass, so he turns and sets it down on the night table set on the opposite side of the bed. "Oui. Any reputation you have here won't matter, soon enough." Will, however, will need to weather the gossip at the docks, through town, and whatever might come from it. He glances at the window, judging the time it will take him to walk back instead of glancing again at the closed sketchbook or the expensive clothes draped on the bed, and moves around it toward his own folded clothes. The worst part, he thinks, is that he's soft enough still to be tempted by the offer. Like an oyster, caught and shucked and waiting in its own cracked shell, exposed and vulnerable. "I don't need a taxi. I'll walk."

Hannibal listens, head cocked, his expression carefully blank. There are protestations he might make, that Will won’t be seen by anyone he knows, that he won’t be recognized if he is. That Hannibal will make him resplendent. But Will’s concerns are his own. They will be his own after Hannibal has returned home. Hannibal can neither cage him nor keep him. He hasn’t even achieved his own majority yet. “As you like,” He says quietly, jaw set. He takes Will’s clothes and holds them out to him, then goes to fetch Will’s boots and his own wallet. On impulse, he takes the knife from his own boot and slips it into Will’s, then holds out a bill to him. “In case your father asks.” Hannibal hopes he will not. Hopes that Will will keep the money and that the knife might find its way into Graham’s paunch.

Will hesitates a beat, and then accepts his clothes. Pulling them on with as methodical movements as he'd used taking them off. The rub of them against his welts isn't agony, the way that it normally would have been - they'll never look as nice as when they were first bought, but they're far nicer than when Will was wearing them.

The knife takes him by surprise. More so than Will wants to admit - his brow quirking higher, briefly, at the show of a it. That same interest from before piquing at the next peek underneath those fine layers of him. At the offering of money, Will goes still pale. Thinks, briefly, how cocky it is to hand someone a knife and then pay them. It's a knee-jerk response, and one Will breathes through with his gaze on the money Hannibal holds. "If he asks, I'll take care of it." He says, and while it's stiff, it isn't the initial bite he'd have gone with a few short hours ago. He thinks of graphite on paper, the sharp strokes of a signature. The air has shifted between them now, and Will knows why. He might be sorry about that, later - private, safe, alone. "Offering it after I'd set the glass down was smart." He'd have thrown it in his face, he thinks. It's accompanied by a wry twist of his mouth, before moving to put on his boots. Thinking of that knife.

Hannibal’s mouth sets in a thin line as he replaces the bill and then his wallet. He would have dodged a glass, he thinks. He thinks, perhaps, that Will might have remembered Hannibal’s treatment of him and refrained from throwing it. But perhaps not. To Hannibal, who has paid amiably for nearly all of his sexual experience, it seems no insult at all to offer Will money, but he will not argue the point. Instead, he only holds out his hand to Will with his best gentle smile. “Will I see you again?” he asks quietly, without much hope. It is almost the last question he has for Will. Almost.

Will's head inclines at the quiet in response to his words. Fair enough, he thinks. When his boots are laced and there's the distinct shape of a blade taking space between his ankle and thick material of the shoe, Will straightens and stands again. Thinks of taking the stairs down and the likelihood of avoiding others at this time; the kitchen won't be empty, but he can duck his head under whatever scrutiny the staff provides. Those thoughts are halted, distracted by Hannibal's hand, and the change from the harsh slash of his mouth into something kinder that's less reassuring. Will studies it, studies him, before he reaches out and clasps Hannibal's hand. He thinks of saying, Sunday mornings, and, No, best not, and what slips out instead are words that match the volume of Hannibal's and more than revealing, "I'd like to. That worries me."

Hannibal twines his fingers in Will’s before he closes the distance between them. He knows better than to tell Will that he knows where to find him. Hannibal remembers how welcome his presence at the docks was. He will not trail after Will like a dog, he tells himself. Will not beg. Instead, he presses a kiss to Will’s cheek and a warm hand to the small of his back. “It would be welcome,” Hannibal murmurs. “You would be welcome.” He steps back and takes both of Will’s hands in both of his, both for the romance of the gesture and for more practical concerns, and looks searchingly into Will’s face. “If your father objects, you may refer him to me. I don’t believe he’ll trouble you very much longer, though. You wouldn’t mind that, would you?” Courtesy compels him to ask. Romance makes him wonder if he might solicit Will’s help in the endeavor. There are practical concerns, though. The matter of alibis if the police do come sniffing. In the past, Hannibal has acted alone out out both preference and necessity. Now, he smells the possibility of change in the air.

Frankly, Will hadn't been expecting the casual intimacy of held hands again - of how close they'd come to be standing. Close enough to feel the heat of the other, particularly when Hannibal leans in. Will finds, to his chagrin, the desire to sway back when Hannibal retreats. "I'll keep it in mind." The words are something dismissive that one might say, but Will knows that he will. If he'll feel the pressing compulsion to indulge again, is another matter entirely. He's afraid he might already have some idea of the answer, when he tips his head to return Hannibal's look.

Will lets out a short laugh when Hannibal first speaks - refer him, indeed - can't help it, much as it might prickle at his pride. But he goes on, and the cynical twist to Will's expression gradually eases into something else. Caiman eyes watching him, and Will thinks of words from earlier when they'd been less dressed, more aroused. The flash of desire has nothing to do with his cock and everything to do with the lick of something dark and ruined in him, not even relieved at the idea of missteps in the dark, as he'd remembered Hannibal biting out - but active, involved excitement at the prospect. With only the memory of blood in his mouth, Will shies from it. And can't quite curb the honesty, even still. "No. But it doesn't much matter what I mind, if it's not very likely to happen. And more problems still if it did. Mieux le diable que vous connaissez."

“Mais tu me connais,” Hannibal can’t resist saying with his best charming smile. He dares to wink at Will even as his nostrils flare. Is that excitement? His eyes widen with genuine curiosity as he studies Will. “I would spare him if you asked me to,” he offers. “Or I would see to him tonight if you asked me that. But if you are silent on the matter, I know what good taste demands.” He thinks of the laugh, of Will’s disbelief that Hannibal would willingly place himself between father and son. Oh, believe it, he wills. Believe it, bien-aimé. It is Will’s choice now whether his father lives or dies. The truth of the matter is in Hannibal’s eyes. He loosens his fingers in Will’s, ready to let him go if he likes, but he doesn’t pull away yet. If this is the last time, Hannibal wants to make it last as long as he can. 

The wink is met with another of Will's raised brow looks, unswayed by the upturn of a quick flash mouth, however handsome it might be. Or, at the very least, appearing the part of unswayed. It's Hannibal's next words that still him, Will's hands reflexively tightening around his as he listens with wider eyes and heart tripping over itself in his chest to speed up jack rabbit quick. For a moment - Will thinks about it. Will is tempted by it, horribly. That dark-twisted part of him rising to attention at the words, watching Hannibal with calculation. Appraising him and the weight of his words. The weight of his offer.

Will has to unclench his jaw from where it's cramped closed to be able to properly respond - eventually. Too long, he thinks, too telling. His gaze dips, wrestling down that blooming feeling of awful want. He can't pull the roots, so he'll choke it down, strangle it from getting too far to see the light. Will tells himself not to put too much weight into Hannibal's words, rich boy words worth less than the thought they spare for the world around them. He doesn't think he'll be able to think of anything else. "Spare him, then," Will says, words like ash in his mouth. It aches, to slip his hands free, when he wants to cup them around this thing he's found to keep close. "Good taste doesn't consider consequences." 

The words feel like icy water in the face, like a slap from a bejeweled hand. Hannibal reels. He hears them, understands them, but comprehension is slow in coming. His jaw sets like a flint as Will retreats from him, and Hannibal clasps his hands behind his back, refusing to allow himself to touch Will for all the things he is terribly afraid he might do. There are so many of them, all the wrong choices, because Will has taken away the correct one, the easy one, Hannibal’s best and highest hope. He has not only refused it but scorned it. “I consider the consequences always,” Hannibal tells him, after more silence has stretched between them. “For which you should be grateful.” The veil slips away from the threat as the words leave Hannibal’s mouth. He can imagine his hands slipped around Will’s throat as clearly as he can imagine himself on his knees at Will’s feet again. 

On leaden feet he crosses to the bedroom door and holds it open wide. Even so far away his nose is full of Will. Grim-faced, unyielding, he extends a hand wordlessly, literally showing Will the door. “Go,” says Hannibal, while everything in him yearns to keep Will close. “I will not follow.” He turns his face away, unable to face the wary look Will will no doubt give him. His heart is breaking. Hannibal can feel it. He was not even certain that it could, and now he feels like it will never be whole again. 

Will's shoulders had tightened at the words, braced and half prepared for a lung. Chin up and eyes gone sharp and wary at the change. It's one that he should have seen coming, he thinks, but for as much as Hannibal had teased - no, he didn't know him. They didn't know each other. He's kept watch and Hannibal has made his own presumptions, but that was, Will thinks, the extent of it. A handful of moments and too many vulnerable spots paraded around for the thrill. It rings not quite true even to himself, when his palms are hot and itchy for the feel of swollen bite marks and soft hair, and the temptation behind cold eyes gone warm from seeing. Making the effort of looking. Fine clothes are still laid out across an unmade, filthy bed - he has half a thought spared for the sketchbook. The book, left behind in the sitting room. He won't go and take it.

Those eyes are cold again, now, though. Will watches him move with his eyes, near bracing himself, until the door is open and there's the order sitting heavy between them. Will's jaw is clenched, from tension or regret he refuses to acknowledge. He's stiff when he finally moves for the door, but it doesn't slow him down. "Adieu." He says, with a finality that settles between them like a stone. The hair prickles on the back of his neck when he moves past Hannibal, back turned on him with the threat still hanging heavy in the air - Will resists every urge and instinct to keep him in his line of sight as he moves past, into the hall and down stairs. Kitchen, he thinks, distantly. The kitchen would be an excellent place to take his leave; to hell with the staff.

When Will is gone, Hannibal throws the windows wide to air the room, jaw clenched as he breathes in the night scents of jasmine and honeysuckle, mud from the Gulf and brick from the buildings. Nothing clears Will from his nostrils. He curls on sweat-stained sheets and clutches damp towels, staring at the wall, refusing to weep. Hours pass. He resolutely does not touch his sketchbook. Cold rage wars with broken grief, ultimately driving him downstairs. On the landing he can hear the family lingering late at the dinner table. Hannibal despises them. He seeks refuge in Murasaki’s rooms. Cajun spices do not agree with her, so she often takes dinner alone in private, plain rice and fish. Today, though, he has to wait for her to return. 

She finds him sitting by her chair, chin on his knees, wishing for his harpsichord at home. He’s filled his head with a mournful sonata, but thoughts of Will still linger. Wordlessly, she seats herself and holds a hand out to him. Hannibal rises to his knees and moves to lean his head against her thigh wordlessly, as he’d so often done when he first came to Paris.Her fingers stroke the bruises on his jaw and shoulder, questioning. He brushes her away. She strokes his head and does not ask why he has come. His face hidden in the warm silk of her skirt, Hannibal finally allows tears to fall in silent, wracking sobs, taking refuge in the purity of his memory, where Will is always his.


End file.
